Rodriguez Jordan T, Lesmeister Damon B, Levi Taal
Pacific Northwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Corvallis, OR, United States of America.
Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, United States of America.
PeerJ. 2021 Apr 6;9:e11083. doi: 10.7717/peerj.11083. eCollection 2021.
Mesocarnivores fill a vital role in ecosystems through effects on community health and structure. Anthropogenic-altered landscapes can benefit some species and adversely affect others. For some carnivores, prey availability increases with urbanization, but landscape use can be complicated by interactions among carnivores as well as differing human tolerance of some species. We used camera traps to survey along a gradient of urban, rural, and forest cover to quantify how carnivore landscape use varies among guild members and determine if a species was a human exploiter, adapter, or avoider. Our study was conducted in and around Corvallis, Oregon from April 2018 to February 2019 (11,914 trap nights) using 47 camera trap locations on a gradient from urban to rural. Our focal species were bobcat (), coyote (), gray fox (), opossum (), raccoon (), and striped skunk (). Raccoon and opossum were human exploiters with low use of forest cover and positive association with urban and rural developed areas likely due to human-derived resources as well as some refugia from larger predators. Coyote and gray fox were human adapters with high use of natural habitats while the effects of urbanization ranged from weak to indiscernible. Bobcat and striped skunk appeared to be human avoiders with negative relationship with urban cover and higher landscape use of forest cover. We conducted a diel temporal activity analysis and found mostly nocturnal activity within the guild, but more diurnal activity by larger-bodied predators compared to the smaller species. Although these species coexist as a community in human-dominated landscapes throughout much of North America, the effects of urbanization were not equal across species. Our results, especially for gray fox and striped skunk, are counter to research in other regions, suggesting that mesopredator use of urbanized landscapes can vary depending on the environmental conditions of the study area and management actions are likely to be most effective when decisions are based on locally derived data.
中型食肉动物通过对群落健康和结构的影响，在生态系统中发挥着至关重要的作用。人为改变的景观可能对某些物种有益，而对其他物种产生不利影响。对于一些食肉动物来说，猎物的可获得性会随着城市化进程而增加，但景观利用可能会因食肉动物之间的相互作用以及人类对某些物种的不同容忍度而变得复杂。我们使用相机陷阱沿着城市、农村和森林覆盖梯度进行调查，以量化食肉动物对景观的利用在不同类群成员之间如何变化，并确定一个物种是人类的利用者、适应者还是回避者。我们的研究于2018年4月至2019年2月在俄勒冈州科瓦利斯及其周边地区进行（共11,914个陷阱夜），在从城市到农村的梯度上使用了47个相机陷阱位置。我们关注的物种有短尾猫、郊狼、灰狐、负鼠、浣熊和条纹臭鼬。浣熊和负鼠是人类的利用者，对森林覆盖的利用较少，与城市和农村发达地区呈正相关，这可能是由于人类提供的资源以及一些躲避大型捕食者的避难所。郊狼和灰狐是人类的适应者，对自然栖息地的利用程度较高，而城市化的影响从微弱到难以察觉。短尾猫和条纹臭鼬似乎是人类的回避者，与城市覆盖呈负相关，对森林覆盖的景观利用更高。我们进行了昼夜时间活动分析，发现该类群内大多是夜间活动，但与较小物种相比，体型较大的捕食者白天活动更多。尽管这些物种在北美大部分地区的人类主导景观中作为一个群落共存，但城市化对不同物种的影响并不相同。我们的结果，尤其是关于灰狐和条纹臭鼬的结果，与其他地区的研究结果相反，这表明中型捕食者对城市化景观的利用可能因研究区域的环境条件而异，并且当基于本地数据做出决策时，管理行动可能最有效。
