Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 11, 2025
04:10
A Trap-Vaccinate-Release Protocol for Immunization of Skunks and Additional Rabies Vectors Against Rabies
Published on: November 29, 2024
917
Raccoon spatial ecology in the rural southeastern United States
Jacob E Hill1, Madison L Miller1, James L Helton1,2
1Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, Aiken, SC, United States of America.
Plos One
|November 9, 2023
Summary
Raccoon movement and home range sizes in South Carolina vary by sex, season, and habitat, impacting zoonotic disease spread. Males, especially in upland pine and riparian areas, exhibit larger ranges, increasing disease transmission risk.
Area of Science:
- Wildlife ecology
- Movement ecology
- Zoonotic disease research
Background:
- Raccoon (Procyon lotor) movement ecology is crucial for understanding zoonotic disease transmission, yet their spatial ecology in the southeastern US is poorly understood.
- Habitat type significantly influences wildlife movement patterns and disease dynamics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how sex, season, and habitat affect monthly home range and core area sizes of raccoons in South Carolina.
- To provide data for effective zoonotic disease management strategies in the southeastern United States.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of 264 monthly home ranges from 46 raccoons across three distinct rural habitats (bottomland hardwood, upland pine, riparian forest) from 2018-2022.
- Calculation of mean monthly 95% and 60% utilization distribution (UD) sizes to quantify home range and core area.
Main Results:
- Male raccoons consistently exhibited larger home ranges and core areas than females in upland pine and riparian habitats.
- Raccoon home ranges varied significantly by habitat and sex, with males in upland pine and riparian habitats displaying some of the largest recorded ranges in the US.
- Female home ranges showed no significant variation across habitats, while male ranges were larger in upland pine and riparian compared to bottomland hardwood habitats.
Conclusions:
- Raccoon spatial ecology, particularly male movement in specific habitats, is a key factor in zoonotic disease spread.
- Findings offer critical insights for developing targeted disease mitigation strategies in the southeastern US, focusing on high-risk populations and habitats.
Related Concept Videos
02:07Conservation of Declining Populations
9.6K
Conservation of declining population focuses on ways of detecting, diagnosing, and halting a population decline. The approach uses methods to prevent populations from going extinct.
9.6K
02:31Habitat Fragmentation
17.5K
Habitat fragmentation describes the division of a more extensive, continuous habitat into smaller, discontinuous areas. Human activities such as land conversion, as well as slower geological processes leading to changes in the physical environment, are the two leading causes of habitat fragmentation. The fragmentation process typically follows the same steps: perforation, dissection, fragmentation, shrinkage, and attrition.
17.5K
02:04Conservation of Small Populations
13.2K
Small population sizes put a species at extreme risk of extinction due to a lack of variation, and a consequent decrease in adaptability. This weakens the chances of survival under pressures such as climate change, competition from other species, or new diseases. Large populations are more likely to survive pressures such as these, as such populations are more likely to harbor individuals that have genetic variants that are adaptive under new stresses. Small populations are much less...
13.2K
01:05Instinctive Drift
229
Instinctive drift refers to the tendency of animals to revert to their innate behaviors despite repeated reinforcement. Breland and Breland demonstrated this concept in an experiment with a raccoon. The raccoon was trained to pick up two coins and place them in a container in exchange for food. Initially, the raccoon learned to associate the coins with food, making them a conditioned stimulus or a substitute for food. However, over time, the raccoon became less willing to put the coins into the...
229
00:30What are Populations and Communities?
33.9K
Overview
33.9K
00:54Distribution and Dispersion
21.8K
To understand intra-specific interactions in populations, scientists measure the spatial arrangement of species individuals. This geographic arrangement is known as the species distribution or dispersion. Highly territorial species exhibit a uniform distribution pattern, in which individuals are spaced at relatively equal distances from one another. Species that are highly tied to particular resources, such as food or shelter, tend to concentrate around those resources, and thus exhibit a...
21.8K