Data from: Sex-specific resource strategies mediate home range sizes of an endangered carnivore across multiple scales
Data files
Oct 02, 2025 version files 103.11 KB
-
modeling_and_plots.R
32.61 KB
-
Ocelot_HR_Comp.csv
18.92 KB
-
Ocelot_Monthly_HR.csv
48.45 KB
-
README.md
3.13 KB
Abstract
Home ranges reflect a trade-off between the costs and benefits associated with acquiring resources and can impact many ecological processes. These intrinsic and extrinsic factors shape how individuals form home ranges, leading to strategies such as maximizing resources across a broader area (resource maximization) or minimizing space use while still meeting energetic and reproductive needs (area minimization). Understanding drivers of spatiotemporal variation in home range size is essential for identifying landscape constraints on populations in rapidly changing systems. Despite this, few studies have concurrently examined how sex-specific home range strategies respond to environmental heterogeneity across multiple spatial and temporal scales. We estimated home ranges across multiple spatiotemporal scales and evaluated the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic drivers on sex-specific home range size for the federally endangered ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) in the two remaining populations in the USA. We used GPS telemetry data from 34 individuals (22 M, 12 F) collected across 12 years to estimate monthly, seasonal, and half-year autocorrelated kernel density estimates of home ranges. We found that male home ranges were ~3x times larger than those of females, and both sexes displayed variation in home range size within a year. Males employed a resource maximization strategy during reproductive periods while females constrained their home ranges in an area-minimizing approach, likely increasing in size to match the demands of reproduction. Vegetation heterogeneity was related to smaller home range size and highlighted the importance of habitat complexity and associated prey diversity to provide more resources in a given area. Our data suggest that home range variation depends on spatial scale and annual changes in life history that respond to dynamic environmental conditions and social interactions. Understanding the drivers of sex-specific home range size across space and time—especially in the context of habitat loss, shifting climate patterns, and changing resource productivity—can help identify key targets related to management and habitat restoration for small and declining populations.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.1ns1rn95b
Description of the data and file structure
We collected GPS collar data from 34 individual (22 M, 12 F) ocelots and fit continuous-time movement models to individual ocelot GPS relocations at monthly, seasonal (3-month period), and half-year (6-month period) timeframes using the R (R Core Team 2024) package ctmm (Calabrese et al., 2016). We calculated autocorrelated kernel density estimators (aKDE). We compared the 50% and 95% aKDE isopleth to identify differences in spatial scale. We used Bayesian generalized linear mixed models to test the effect of sex, landscape, and climate variables on home range size. We fit a Gamma distribution with a log link because of non-negative and right-skewed home range sizes in separate models for each sex, and aKDE isopleth (50% and 95%) with individual identification as a random effect.
Files and variables
File: Ocelot_HR_Comp.csv
Description: Data used to compare temporal differences in home range size of ocelots in south Texas.
Variables
- Date: Month/Day/Year
- Animal.ID: unique animal identification
- Time: duration of relocations used to estimate home range
- level: 50% or 95% isopleth of aKDE home range
- Sex: Male or Female
- area_km2: home range estimate from aKDE in square kilometers
File: Ocelot_Monthly_HR.csv
Description: Data used to test environmental effects on ocelot home range size.
Variables
- Animal.ID: unique animal identification
- Date: Month/Day/Year
- Sex: Male or Female
- Time: duration of relocations used to estimate home range
- level: 50% or 95% isopleth of aKDE home range
- data: category of time and level
- area_km2: home range estimate from aKDE in square kilometers
- tmean: mean temperature (Celsius)
- ppt: mean precipitation (mm)
- spei1y: Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) where climatic water balance was aggregated for the last 1 year
- ndvi: normalized difference vegetation index (i.e., vegetation productivity; unitless)
- entropy.ndvi: 2nd order entropy of ndvi (i.e., vegetation heterogeneity; unitless)
- cover: proportion of canopy cover
- gyrate_mn: mean radius of gyration of woody land cover (meters)
- pland: proportion of woody vegetation
File: modeling_and_plots.R
Description: The R script used to run ocelot home range models. The script loads and installs necessary packages and code can be run sequentially to fit models and produce figures in manuscript.
Variables
- NA
Code/software
File: modeling_and_plots.R
The R file is the script to run ocelot home range models used in the associated manuscript: Sex-specific resource strategies mediate home range sizes of an endangered carnivore across multiple scales. The script loads and installs necessary packages and code can be run sequentially to fit models and produce figures in manuscript.
Access information
Other publicly accessible locations of the data:
- Github