Differential Habitat Use or Intraguild Interactions: What Structures a Carnivore Community?

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Wildlife Conservation
• Population Dynamics

Background:

• Differential habitat use and intraguild competition are key drivers of animal populations.
• Previous studies focused on individual species or pairs, lacking community-wide assessments.
• The relative importance of habitat versus species interactions remains unclear for many guilds.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the relative importance of differential habitat use and intraguild competition on carnivore distribution.
• To build and compare multi-scale habitat occupancy models with and without competitor co-occurrences.
• To understand community-wide patterns in a diverse carnivore guild.

Main Methods:

• Developed multi-scale habitat occupancy models for five carnivore taxa in New York's Adirondacks.
• Compared habitat-only models against models incorporating co-occurrences of competing carnivore species.
• Analyzed associations with habitat features (roads, forest fragments, terrain, elevation, forest cover) and competitor abundance.

Main Results:

• Habitat-based models performed well for most species; black bears and fishers avoided paved roads.
• Black bears preferred larger forest fragments, while fishers occupied smaller ones.
• Habitat-only models were generally superior, except for smaller taxa (marten, weasel) where coyote abundance improved model fit.

Conclusions:

• Differential habitat use is the predominant factor structuring the Adirondack carnivore guild.
• Species interactions play a lesser role compared to habitat associations in this community.
• Conservation and management should prioritize habitat considerations for maintaining carnivore distributions.