Fill Jennifer M, Waldron Jayme L, Welch Shane M, Gibbons J Whitfield, Bennett Stephen H, Mousseau Timothy A
Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina Columbia, Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America.
Department of Biological Sciences, Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2015 Apr 27;10(4):e0123307. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0123307. eCollection 2015.
In evaluating conservation and management options for species, practitioners might consider surrogate habitats at multiple scales when estimating available habitat or modeling species' potential distributions based on suitable habitats, especially when native environments are rare. Species' dependence on surrogates likely increases as optimal habitat is degraded and lost due to anthropogenic landscape change, and thus surrogate habitats may be vital for an imperiled species' survival in highly modified landscapes. We used spatial habitat models to examine a potential surrogate habitat for an imperiled ambush predator (eastern diamondback rattlesnake, Crotalus adamanteus; EDB) at two scales. The EDB is an apex predator indigenous to imperiled longleaf pine ecosystems (Pinus palustris) of the southeastern United States. Loss of native open-canopy pine savannas and woodlands has been suggested as the principal cause of the species' extensive decline. We examined EDB habitat selection in the Coastal Plain tidewater region to evaluate the role of marsh as a potential surrogate habitat and to further quantify the species' habitat requirements at two scales: home range (HR) and within the home range (WHR). We studied EDBs using radiotelemetry and employed an information-theoretic approach and logistic regression to model habitat selection as use vs.
We failed to detect a positive association with marsh as a surrogate habitat at the HR scale; rather, EDBs exhibited significantly negative associations with all landscape patches except pine savanna. Within home range selection was characterized by a negative association with forest and a positive association with ground cover, which suggests that EDBs may use surrogate habitats of similar structure, including marsh, within their home ranges. While our HR analysis did not support tidal marsh as a surrogate habitat, marsh may still provide resources for EDBs at smaller scales.
在评估物种的保护和管理方案时，从业者在估计可用栖息地或基于适宜栖息地对物种潜在分布进行建模时，可能会在多个尺度上考虑替代栖息地，尤其是在原生环境稀少的情况下。由于人为景观变化导致最佳栖息地退化和丧失，物种对替代栖息地的依赖可能会增加，因此替代栖息地对于濒危物种在高度改造的景观中的生存可能至关重要。我们使用空间栖息地模型在两个尺度上研究了一种濒危伏击捕食者（东部菱斑响尾蛇，Crotalus adamanteus；EDB）的潜在替代栖息地。EDB是一种顶级捕食者，原产于美国东南部濒危的长叶松生态系统（Pinus palustris）。原生开阔树冠松稀树草原和林地的丧失被认为是该物种广泛衰退的主要原因。我们在沿海平原潮水区域研究了EDB的栖息地选择，以评估湿地作为潜在替代栖息地的作用，并在两个尺度上进一步量化该物种的栖息地需求：家域（HR）和家域内（WHR）。我们使用无线电遥测技术研究EDB，并采用信息论方法和逻辑回归将栖息地选择建模为使用与
我们未能在HR尺度上检测到与湿地作为替代栖息地的正相关；相反，EDB与除松稀树草原外的所有景观斑块呈现出显著的负相关。在家域内选择的特征是与森林呈负相关，与地被物呈正相关，这表明EDB可能在其家域内使用结构相似的替代栖息地，包括湿地。虽然我们的HR分析不支持潮汐湿地作为替代栖息地，但湿地在较小尺度上仍可能为EDB提供资源。
