Habitat Selection by American Martens (Martes americana) in Coastal Northwestern California

• Main Authors: Keith M. Slauson, Submitted To
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2003
• Subjects: Pacific; Martes americana
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.566.8048; http://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/SierraNevadaWildlife/AmericanMarten/AM-Slauson03.pdf

The Humboldt marten, Martes americana humboldtensis, has undergone a dramatic decline throughout its historical distribution in coastal Northwestern California. There is currently only one known population occupying an area occurring in <5 % of the historical distribution of the subspecies. Conservation and management efforts to benefit this population are hampered by lack of information on the habitat ecology of martens in the coastal forest of northwestern California. Furthermore there have been no investigations of the habitat ecology of marten populations anywhere in the coastal forests of the Pacific States. I investigated habitat relationships of the only known population of martens within the historical distribution of M. a. humboldtensis at three spatial scales (microhabitat, stand, and home range) and in relation to four forest management regimes (industrial timberlands, and U. S. Forest Service (USFS) matrix lands, late-successional reserves, and wilderness). Over 12 months of fieldwork during 2000 and 2001, I detected iv martens at 26 of 159 track plate sample units distributed on a systematic grid located