Within the carnivore community, each carnivore has a unique role to play in the regulation of lower trophic levels. Because interactions between carnivores shape the populations of lower trophic levels, it is critical that we understand how carnivores interact with each other in order to understand how these interactions shape the ecosystem as a whole. To date, no study has examined the interactions of an entire carnivore community in the region. At our study site, the primary carnivore species are wolves, coyotes, bobcats, and black bears.
In order to understand how these species are interacting across the landscape and which species are driving the interactions, I will use an occupancy modeling framework to generate habitat selection models and to quantify the interactions between species. To address these objectives, 25 cameras will be placed across 25 km2 of diverse northern Wisconsin forest and will be in the field from May 1 – August 1, 2019. Habitat data for the habitat selection models was extracted from GIS and the National Landcover Database. From the preliminary data, I generated probabilities of occupancy and modeled habitat selection patterns for each detected carnivore species. I also examined activity patterns and interspecific activity overlap.
Results/Conclusions
My findings indicate that wolves dominate spatial interactions with coyotes and coyotes dominate spatial interactions with bobcats. These findings confirm the current understanding of carnivore interactions in the literature, as there are territorial conflicts between wolves and coyotes and between coyotes and bobcats. While bears did not appear to avoid any of the other carnivores in this study, there did seem to be a slight correlation between wolf and bear occupancies. This is likely due to the decreased browse pressure on berries in areas of high wolf occupancy as a result of the lower density of deer in these areas. By extensively modeling spatial distributions of each species, I was able to determine which habitats were chosen most often by which species, and how avoidance behavior between carnivores shaped these patterns. By quantifying the interactions between carnivores, I was able to determine which species had the greatest impact on the spatial distributions of the other carnivores. These findings demonstrate the importance of understanding how the interactions between carnivore species shape the landscape with regards to both the herbivores and plant communities in the region. In the future, this work will serve as a basis upon which to manage wildlife populations.