The influence of spatial patterns in foraging habitat on the abundance and home range size of a vulnerable arboreal marsupial in southeast Australia
| Autor: | Craig R. Nitschke, Benjamin Wagner, Patrick J. Baker |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Arboreal locomotion habitat suitability greater glider Home range home ranges Foraging Population QH1-199.5 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences foraging Abundance (ecology) education QH540-549.5 General Environmental Science Marsupial disturbance education.field_of_study biology Ecology 010604 marine biology & hydrobiology General. Including nature conservation geographical distribution 15. Life on land biology.organism_classification Geography Habitat 13. Climate action habitat resources Spatial ecology General Earth and Planetary Sciences |
| Zdroj: | Conservation Science and Practice, Vol 3, Iss 12, Pp n/a-n/a (2021) |
| ISSN: | 2578-4854 |
| Popis: | Wildlife can persist in a range of landscape configurations, but population densities can vary due to resource availability. Resources and environmental conditions shaping habitat suitability may be spatially dispersed or clumped, which can drive habitat availability. We explored how spatial configuration and aggregation of favorable feeding resources and climatic conditions affect populations of the greater glider (Petauroides volans), an arboreal marsupial in southeast Australia, vulnerable to climate change and disturbances. We hypothesized home‐range functionality from literature and field observations and used a generalized spatial framework based on neutral landscape models to test how spatial aggregation influences home‐range sizes and population structure. At the landscape scale, any decrease in climatic suitability also decreased potential population density, independent of the initial spatial configuration of the feeding landscape. At the stand scale however, the spatial configuration of feeding habitat drove population density. Dispersed resources required increased home‐range sizes for individual greater gliders to obtain feeding resources and resulted in smaller populations. Clumped resources supported larger populations, even when only small fractions of the stand contained feeding habitat. Disturbances to these resources could either retain populations or lead to extinction, depending on spatial aggregation and disturbance intensity. Increasingly severe dispersed disturbances caused potential home ranges to disappear more rapidly and remaining home ranges to become larger and contain less feeding habitat. The ability of greater gliders to establish populations and persist under disturbance was therefore highly dependent on the spatial aggregation of habitat resources and the type and severity of disturbance. Changes in climate act at a different scale and may override favorable habitat conditions at the stand level. Our results have implications for the conservation and retention of critical feeding habitat for greater gliders and provide insights into important factors to ensure population persistence under climate change and forest management. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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