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Assessing wolves and cougars as conservation surrogates
Author(s) -
Kunkel K. E.,
Atwood T. C.,
Ruth T. K.,
Pletscher D. H.,
Hornocker M. G.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
animal conservation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.111
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1469-1795
pISSN - 1367-9430
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-1795.2012.00568.x
Subject(s) - habitat , geography , predation , ecology , terrain , biodiversity , land cover , cartography , biology , land use
Large carnivores have been posited as potential conservation surrogates to inform the design and prioritization of conservation planning. We show that wolves C anis lupus and cougars P uma concolor may have potential to serve as a surrogate suite for conserving landscape heterogeneity, hypothesized to be a determinant of biodiversity in some landscapes. We examined habitat and landscape features associated with the spatial distribution of wolf‐ and cougar‐killed prey in the basin of the N orth F ork of the F lathead R iver in M ontana. The spatial distribution of wolf‐killed prey was driven largely by cover type, whereas physiographic characteristics were the primary driver of the distribution of cougar‐killed prey. Spatial templates, generated using >0.66 probability quantiles from spatially explicit models of kill site distribution, estimated over three times as much high‐quality habitat for wolves (1005 km 2 ) than for cougars (381 km 2 ). While there were only minor differences in the proportional representation of land cover types between the wolf and cougar templates, 40% of the cougar template fell outside the wolf template, and the former contained over three times more rugged terrain than the latter. The use of a combined wolf–cougar spatial template resulted in a 15% increase in total area and 91% increase in the amount of rugged terrain identified. Based on our models, the advantage of using both wolves and cougars as a focal suite in north‐west Montana is the ability to identify a greater area of high‐quality habitat, and capture landscape heterogeneity that may be important to conserving biodiversity.