Dispersal is a complex series of movements before an individual establishes a home range. Animals must travel and forage in unfamiliar landscapes that include anthropogenic risks such as road crossings, harvest, and urban landscapes. We compare dispersal behavior of juvenile mountain lions (Puma concolor) from two geographically distinct populations in California and Nevada, USA. These two sites are ecologically similar but have different management practices; hunting is permitted in Nevada, whereas mountain lions are protected in California. We used GPS-collar data and net-squared displacement analysis to identify three dispersal states: exploratory, departure, and transient home range. We then compared each dispersal state of the two mountain lion populations using an integrated step selection analysis (iSSA). The model included explanatory variables hypothesized to influence one or more dispersal states, including distance to forest, shrub, water, hay and crop, developed lands, four-wheel drive roads, elevation, and terrain ruggedness. Results revealed consistent habitat selection between sites across most landscape variables, with one notable exception: anthropogenic covariates, including distance to developed land, distance to hay and crop, and distance to four-wheeled drive roads, were only statistically significant on modeled habitat selection during dispersal in the population subject to hunting. Results indicate avoidance of anthropogenic landscapes in the hunted population, suggesting that hunting and non-lethal pursuit increases avoidance of anthropogenic landscapes during dispersal for juvenile mountain lions. Comparing populations provides valuable insights into the role of management in shaping dispersal behavior.

Processed and organized by John F. Randolph on 5/26/24 (Updated 11/15/24), other important contributors were Julie K. Young, David C. Stoner, and David K. Garcelon.

Data:

This is raw data from GPS collared juvenile mountain lions between the ages of 14-22 months in Modoc County California. All data was collected between 2016-2022. Each CSV file corresponds to an individual animal, with the file name representing the individual's identifier. All California mountain lion data was collected by the Institute for Wildlife Studies(IWS).

Data Files

F206_iws.csv - Female juvenile with ID 206

F286_iws.csv - Female juvenile with ID 286

M168_iws.csv - Male juvenile with ID 168

M176_iws.csv - Male juvenile with ID 176

M197_iws.csv - Male juvenile with ID 197

M198_iws.csv - Male juvenile with ID 198

M200_iws.csv - Male juvenile with ID 200

M202_iws.csv - Male juvenile with ID 202

M208_iws.csv - Male juvenile with ID 208

M280_iws.csv - Male juvenile with ID 280

M281_iws.csv - Male juvenile with ID 281

M282_iws.csv - Male juvenile with ID 282

M341_iws.csv - Male juvenile with ID 341

*Due to the use of different collar companies (Vectronic, Lotek, and Sirtrack), the column names do not all match but are similar. Descriptions of column names can be found below. The provided code will edit the column names and make them all the same

The Nevada data and code is not provided because Nevada mountain lions are a protected game species under Nevada Administrative Code (NAC) 502.370).

As such, raw location data of mountain lions are considered proprietary and cannot be released without written permission from the Nevada Department of Wildlife. Data inquiries can be addressed to Patrick Jackson at [pjackson@ndow.org].

Column names and descriptions by collar companies

Lotek and Sirtrack Collars

Collarid: Collar / Animal ID

Device: Collar serial number

animal: Animal ID

Lion&Collar: Lion ID and collar serial number

GMT: Greenwich Mean Time

Localtime: Local time for Northeastern California (Pacific)

Year: Year point was taken

Month: Month point was taken

Day: Day point was taken

Hour: Hour point was taken

Minute: Minute point was taken

Second: Second point was taken

DOP: Dilution of precision (measurement of accuracy of GPS point)

Long: Longitudinal location

Lat: Latitudinal location

UTM-E: UTM easting location in zone 10

UTM-N: UTM northing location in Zone 10

Start: Day collared

End: Day collar dropped or mortality event

Days.after.start: how many days since collared

Days.before.end: how many days till collar dropped off of mortality

Vectronic Collars

No: Number of locations

CollarID: Collar / Animal ID

UTC_Date: UTC date

UTC_Time: UTC time

LMT_Date/Time: Local mean date and local mean time

Origin: Shows where the message originates from

SCTS_Date/Time: the date/time when the message receives the provider

ECEF X, Y, and Z: Coordinates in the Earth Centered Earth Fixed coordinate system

Latitude[°]: Latitudinal location

longitude[°]: longitudinal location

Height[m]: Elevation of location

DOP: Dilution of precision (measurement of accuracy of GPS point)

FixType: quality of fix obtained

3D_Error[m]: Difference(m) between real position and transmitted position

Sats: Number of satellites used for the fix

Sat: channels of the GPS receiver with two columns each containing the received satellite number and the carrier to noise ratio in dBHz

C/N: channels of the GPS receiver with two columns each containing the received satellite number and the carrier to noise ratio in dBHz

Mort.Status: Shows if animal is alive or dead

Activity: Value for internal usage only. Not connected to any kind of activity generated by the VERTEX Plus or GPS Plus collars

Main[V]: Voltage of the main battery

Beacon[V]: Voltage of the beacon battery

Temp[°C]: Ambient temperature

Easting: UTM easting location in zone 10

Northing: UTM northing location in Zone 10

AnimalID: Not Assigned

GroupID: Not Assigned

Collar user manual: [https://www.vectronic-aerospace.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Survey-Collar-Manual-V2.4.pdf]

Code:

All code was written in the program R (version 4.2.2) and is organized in steps from 1 to 11. Starting at 1, the processing and cleaning of raw data begins, and ending with 11, the model output and figures are generated.

Code Descriptions:

01Lion_Processing - Processing raw data to a clean version

02DataResampling - Resampling GPS data fix rates

03ClusterIdentifier - Identify killsite clusters

04ClusterRemoval - Remove identified killsite clusters

05NSD - Identifying different movement states of dispersal with Net-squared displacement

06Behavior&Sex_Columns - Adding a column for sex and a column for movement state

07Combining lions and behaviors - Combining all lions and behaviors into one data frame

08Covariate_correlation - Check correlation of covariates

09Extracting_Covariates - Create movement distributions for movement states and then extract covariates for each location

10ScalingCovariates - Scale and center covariates

11_IssaModel - Running integrated step selection analyses for both California and Nevada, followed by calculating a population average and generating plots to compare the results.

Data from: Impacts of management practices on habitat selection during juvenile mountain lion dispersal

Data files

Abstract

Data:

Data Files

Column names and descriptions by collar companies

Lotek and Sirtrack Collars

Vectronic Collars

Code:

Code Descriptions:

Data from: Impacts of management practices on habitat selection during juvenile mountain lion dispersal

Data files

Abstract

README: Data from: Impacts of Management Practices on Habitat Selection During Juvenile Mountain Lion Dispersal

Data:

Data Files

Column names and descriptions by collar companies

Lotek and Sirtrack Collars

Vectronic Collars

Code:

Code Descriptions:

Works referencing this dataset