Publication Date
2020
Document Type
Thesis
Committee Members
Thomas P. Rooney, Ph.D. (Advisor); Volker Bahn, Ph.D. (Committee Member); Lynn Hartzler, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Abstract
Interactions between carnivores play a crucial role in regulating lower trophic levels. In order to examine interspecific interactions among Great Lakes carnivores, I used occupancy models to examine habitat selection patterns and quantify interactions between species. I determined temporal patterns of activity for each species and quantified interspecific activity overlap using kernel density estimates. To generate these models and analyze the patterns displayed, I placed 25 cameras across 25 km2 of diverse northern Wisconsin forest. I extracted habitat data from the National Landcover Database using GIS to inform my occurrence models for each detected carnivore species. The only significant influence on the occurrence of any carnivore species was the importance of small mammals in driving red fox occurrence. This research demonstrates the importance of scale in ecological modeling and these methods can be applied in the future to inform carnivore management decisions such as habitat conservation and limitations for hunting/trapping.
Page Count
76
Department or Program
Department of Biological Sciences
Year Degree Awarded
2020
Copyright
Copyright 2020, all rights reserved. My ETD will be available under the "Fair Use" terms of copyright law.
