Browsing by Author "Cox, John J."

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    Consequences of severe habitat fragmentation on density, genetics, and spatial capture-recapture analysis of a small bear population
    Murphy, Sean M.; Augustine, Ben C.; Ulrey, Wade A.; Guthrie, Joseph M.; Scheick, Brian K.; McCown, J. Walter; Cox, John J. (PLOS, 2017-07-24)
    Loss and fragmentation of natural habitats caused by human land uses have subdivided several formerly contiguous large carnivore populations into multiple small and often isolated subpopulations, which can reduce genetic variation and lead to precipitous population declines. Substantial habitat loss and fragmentation from urban development and agriculture expansion relegated the Highlands-Glades subpopulation (HGS) of Florida, USA, black bears (Ursus americanus floridanus) to prolonged isolation; increasing human land development is projected to cause ≥ 50% loss of remaining natural habitats occupied by the HGS in coming decades. We conducted a noninvasive genetic spatial capture-recapture study to quantitatively describe the degree of contemporary habitat fragmentation and investigate the consequences of habitat fragmentation on population density and genetics of the HGS. Remaining natural habitats sustaining the HGS were significantly more fragmented and patchier than those supporting Florida’s largest black bear subpopulation. Genetic diversity was low (AR = 3.57; HE = 0.49) and effective population size was small (NE = 25 bears), both of which remained unchanged over a period spanning one bear generation despite evidence of some immigration. Subpopulation density (0.054 bear/km2) was among the lowest reported for black bears, was significantly female-biased, and corresponded to a subpopulation size of 98 bears in available habitat. Conserving remaining natural habitats in the area occupied by the small, genetically depauperate HGS, possibly through conservation easements and government land acquisition, is likely the most important immediate step to ensuring continued persistence of bears in this area. Our study also provides evidence that preferentially placing detectors (e.g., hair traps or cameras) primarily in quality habitat across fragmented landscapes poses a challenge to estimating density-habitat covariate relationships using spatial capture-recapture models. Because habitat fragmentation and loss are likely to increase in severity globally, further investigation of the influence of habitat fragmentation and detector placement on estimation of this relationship is warranted.
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    Integrating multiple genetic detection methods to estimate population density of social and territorial carnivores
    Murphy, Sean M.; Augustine, Ben C.; Adams, Jennifer R.; Waits, Lisette P.; Cox, John J. (Ecological Society of America, 2018-10)
    Spatial capture-recapture models can produce unbiased estimates of population density, but sparse detection data often plague studies of social and territorial carnivores. Integrating multiple types of detection data can improve estimation of the spatial scale parameter (sigma), activity center locations, and density. Noninvasive genetic sampling is effective for detecting carnivores, but social structure and territoriality could cause differential detectability among population cohorts for different detection methods. Using three observation models, we evaluated the integration of genetic detection data from noninvasive hair and scat sampling of the social and territorial coyote (Canis latrans). Although precision of estimated density was improved, particularly if sharing sigma between detection methods was appropriate, posterior probabilities of sigma and posterior predictive checks supported different sigma for hair and scat observation models. The resulting spatial capture-recapture model described a scenario in which scat-detected individuals lived on and around scat transects, whereas hair-detected individuals had larger sigma and mostly lived off of the detector array, leaving hair but not scat samples. A more supported interpretation is that individual heterogeneity in baseline detection rates (lambda(0)) was inconsistent between detection methods, such that each method disproportionately detected different population cohorts. These findings can be attributed to the sociality and territoriality of canids: Residents may be more likely to strategically mark territories via defecation (scat deposition), and transients may be more likely to exhibit rubbing (hair deposition) to increase mate attraction. Although this suggests that reliance on only one detection method may underestimate population density, integrating multiple sources of genetic detection data may be problematic for social and territorial carnivores. These data are typically sparse, modeling individual heterogeneity in lambda(0) and/or sigma with sparse data is difficult, and positive bias can be introduced in density estimates if individual heterogeneity in detection parameters that is inconsistent between detection methods is not appropriately modeled. Previous suggestions for assessing parameter consistency of sigma between detection methods using Bayesian model selection algorithms could be confounded by individual heterogeneity in lambda(0) in noninvasive detection data. We demonstrate the usefulness of augmenting those approaches with calibrated posterior predictive checks and plots of the posterior density of activity centers for key individuals.
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    Spatial capture-recapture for categorically marked populations with an application to genetic capture-recapture
    Augustine, Ben C.; Royle, J. Andrew; Murphy, Sean M.; Chandler, Richard B.; Cox, John J.; Kelly, Marcella J. (Ecological Society of America, 2019-04)
    Recently introduced unmarked spatial capture-recapture (SCR), spatial mark-resight (SMR), and 2-flank spatial partial identity models (SPIMs) extend the domain of SCR to populations or observation systems that do not always allow for individual identity to be determined with certainty. For example, some species do not have natural marks that can reliably produce individual identities from photographs, and some methods of observation produce partial identity samples as is the case with remote cameras that sometimes produce single-flank photographs. Unmarked SCR, SMR, and SPIM share the feature that they probabilistically resolve the uncertainty in individual identity using the spatial location where samples were collected. Spatial location is informative of individual identity in spatially structured populations because a sample is more likely to have been produced by an individual living near the trap where it was recorded than an individual living further away from the trap. Further, the level of information about individual identity that a spatial location contains is related to two key ecological concepts, population density and home range size, which we quantify using a proposed Identity Diversity Index (IDI). We show that latent and partial identity SCR models produce imprecise and biased density estimates in many high IDI scenarios when data are sparse. We then extend the unmarked SCR model to incorporate categorical, partially identifying covariates, which reduce the level of uncertainty in individual identity, increasing the reliability and precision of density estimates, and allowing reliable density estimation in scenarios with higher IDI values and with more sparse data. We illustrate the performance of this "categorical SPIM" via simulations and by applying it to a black bear data set using microsatellite loci as categorical covariates, where we reproduce the full data set estimates with only slightly less precision using fewer loci than necessary for confident individual identification. We then discuss how the categorical SPIM can be applied to other wildlife sampling scenarios such as remote camera surveys, where natural or researcher-applied partial marks can be observed in photographs. Finally, we discuss how the categorical SPIM can be added to SMR, 2-flank SPIM, or other latent identity SCR models.
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    Terrestrial Wildlife in the Post-mined Appalachian Landscape: Status and Opportunities
    Lituma, Christopher M.; Cox, John J.; Spear, Stephen F.; Edwards, John W.; De La Cruz, Jesse L.; Muller, Lisa I.; Ford, W. Mark (Springer, 2021)
    Coal mining is an anthropogenic stressor that has impacted terrestrial and semi-aquatic wildlife in the Appalachian Plateau since European settlement. Creation of grassland and early-successional habitats resulting from mining in a forested landscape has resulted in novel, non-analog habitat conditions. Depending on the taxa, the extent of mining on the landscape, and reclamation practices, effects have ranged across a gradient of negative to positive. Forest-obligate species such as woodland salamanders and forest-interior birds or those that depend on aquatic systems in their life cycle have been most impacted. Others, such as grassland and early-successional bird species have responded favorably. Some bat species, as an unintended consequence, use legacy deep mines as winter hibernacula in a region with limited karst geology. Recolonization of impacted wildlife often depends on life strategies and species’ vagility, but also on altered or arrested successional processes on the post-surface mine landscape. Many wildlife species will benefit from Forest Reclamation Approach practices going forward. In the future, managers will be faced with decisions about reforestation versus maintaining open habitats depending on the conservation need of species. Lastly, the post-mined landscape currently is the focal point for a regional effort to restore elk (Cervus canadensis) in the Appalachians.