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Dryad

Data for: Effects of landcover on mesocarnivore density along an urban to rural gradient

Data files

Jun 16, 2023 version files 2.02 MB

Abstract

Human development has major implications for wildlife populations. Urban-exploiter species can benefit from human subsidized resources, whereas urban-avoider species can vanish from wildlife communities in highly developed areas. Therefore, understanding how the density of different species varies in response to landcover changes associated with human development can provide important insight into how wildlife communities are likely to change and provide a starting point for predicting the consequences of those changes. Here, we estimated the population density of five common mesocarnivore species (coyote (Canis latrans), bobcat (Lynx rufus), red fox (Vulpes vulpes), raccoon (Procyon lotor), and Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana)) along an urban to rural gradient in the greater Fayetteville Area, Northwest Arkansas, USA between November 2021, and March 2022. At each study site, we applied the Random Encounter Model (REM) to data from motion-triggered cameras to calculate the density of our five focal species. Coyote density ranged from 0–3.47 with a mean of 0.4 individuals/km2. Raccoon density ranged from 0–93.26 with a mean of 4.2 individuals/ km2. Bobcat density ranged from 0–8.87 with a mean of 0.33 individuals/km2. Opossum density ranged from 0–27.35 with a mean of 0.76 individuals/km2. Red fox density ranged from 0–0.73, with a mean of 0.02 individuals/km2. We used generalized linear models to evaluate the density of each species against environmental and anthropogenic variables. Coyotes and raccoons occurred in the greatest densities in areas with high anthropogenic noise levels, suggesting that both species are synanthropic and able to co-exist in areas of high human activity. Alternatively, Virginia opossum and red fox densities were greatest in open, developed areas (lawns, golf courses, cemeteries, and parks) and were absent (red fox) or rare (opossum) in natural areas. We found no evidence that bobcat density varied along the urban to rural gradient studied, but this lack of evidence may have been driven by the small spatial scale of many of our sites in relation to space needs of this wide-ranging species. The density estimates we report based on game camera data of unmarked animals were consistent with reports from the literature for these same species derived from traditional methods, providing additional support to the REM as a viable, non-invasive method to calculate density of unmarked species.