Key words: ambush predator encounter rate habitat selection hunting behavior predation risk prey vulnerability Puma concolor Vicugnavicugna. Pumas also select against areas of deep snow, likely because it hinders movement and reduces ungulate prey abundance (CDFW 2015 Laundr and Hernndez 2003 Poole and Mowat 2005). Although prey density is a widely accepted correlate of habitat quality for many carnivores, our results suggest that structural elements of habitat may be a more important variable in predicting habitat use by large stalk and ambush predators like pumas, which has important implications for conservation success. measures of predator or prey behavior, to comprehensively describe the feedbacks between predator and prey in the predatorpreygame. For example, pumas are ambush predators that require vegetative structure for cover, and therefore they select against open habitats (Gray et al. However, even the best deer models performed poorly compared to the puma models, likely due to the ubiquity of mule deer in the region. The best occupancy models for mule deer indicated the importance of roads and shrub cover. It has the handsome looks of a lion and the dexterity of a leopard, boasts the largest range in the western hemisphere of the terrestrial mammals and is the. Instead, pumas preferentially occupy habitats that facilitate their stalk and ambush hunting strategy, rather than higher prey densities, per se. Our results indicated that pumas primarily occupied forested habitats and did not choose habitats with abundant deer. Our goal was to determine whether pumas occupy habitats based on relative measures of prey availability (detection frequency), or ease of predation (density of stalking cover) and whether these predictors changed between seasons. Here we used data from 68 299 camera trap nights collected from 181 sites throughout the San Francisco Bay Area over a four-year period to identify key predictors of habitat occupancy for pumas and their primary prey (mule deer Odocoileus hemionus). They eat a wide variety of prey, over 85 species have been. ![]() Previous work suggests that pumas occupy habitats where sufficient stalking cover and preferred prey are present, yet the intersection of these factors has rarely been assessed. Despite being considered as the archetypical ambush hunter, some studies suggest a certain degree of flexibility in puma hunting styles, habitat needs, and diets (Anderson, 1983 Hornocker & Negri, 2010 Iriarte et al. Jaguars are stalk-and-ambush predators and they are at the top of their food chain, meaning they don’t have any predators in the wild. Shrinking habitat and reduced connectivity mean that mapping habitat is increasingly important for species conservation in multiple-use landscapes. This problem is particularly acute for large, obligate carnivores like pumas Puma concolor which have persisted in North and South America in the face of habitat fragmentation and other anthropogenic disturbances. ![]() Habitat fragmentation represents the single greatest conservation challenge of the 21st century.
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