Anthropogenic Disturbance and Population Viability of Woodland Caribou in Ontario

• Published in: The Journal of Wildlife Management
• Main Authors: Fryxell, John M., Avgar, Tal, Liu, Boyan, Baker, James A., Rodgers, Arthur R., Shuter, Jennifer, Thompson, Ian D., Reid, Douglas E. B., Kittle, Andrew M., Mosser, Anna, Newmaster, Steven G., Nudds, Tom D., Street, Garrett M., Brown, Glen S., Patterson, Brent
• Other Authors: Natural Resources Canada, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, W. Garfield Weston Foundation
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2020
• Subjects: Canada; Canis lupus; Rangifer tarandus
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.21829; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fjwmg.21829; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jwmg.21829; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/jwmg.21829

ABSTRACT One of the most challenging tasks in wildlife conservation and management is to clarify how spatial variation in land cover due to anthropogenic disturbance influences wildlife demography and long‐term viability. To evaluate this, we compared rates of survival and population growth by woodland caribou ( Rangifer tarandus caribou ) from 2 study sites in northern Ontario, Canada that differed in the degree of anthropogenic disturbance because of commercial logging and road development, resulting in differences in predation risk due to gray wolves ( Canis lupus ). We used an individual‐based model for population viability analysis (PVA) that incorporated adaptive patterns of caribou movement in relation to predation risk and food availability to predict stochastic variation in rates of caribou survival. Field estimates of annual survival rates for adult female caribou in the unlogged ( 0.90) and logged ( 0.76) study sites recorded during 2010–2014 did not differ significantly ( P > 0.05) from values predicted by the individual‐based PVA model (unlogged: = 0.87; logged: 0.79). Outcomes from the individual‐based PVA model and a simpler stage‐structured matrix model suggest that substantial differences in adult survival largely due to wolf predation are likely to lead to long‐term decline of woodland caribou in the commercially logged landscape, whereas the unlogged landscape should be considerably more capable of sustaining caribou. Estimates of population growth rates ( λ ) for the 2010–2014 period differed little between the matrix model and the individual‐based PVA model for the unlogged (matrix model = 1.01; individual‐based model = 0.98) and logged landscape (matrix model = 0.88; individual‐based model = 0.89). We applied the spatially explicit PVA model to assess the viability of woodland caribou across 14 woodland caribou ranges in Ontario. Outcomes of these simulations suggest that woodland caribou ranges that have experienced significant levels of commercial forestry activities in the past had ...