Data from: Dracula’s ménagerie: A multispecies occupancy analysis of lynx, wildcat, and wolf in the Romanian Carpathians ...

• Main Author: Dyck, Marissa
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2022
• Subjects: occupancy data; carnivore; Lynx lynx; Felis silvestris; Canis lupus; Lynx; European wildcat; Grey wolf; FOS Biological sciences
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.47d7wm3gp; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.47d7wm3gp

The recovery of terrestrial carnivores in Europe is a conservation success story. Initiatives focused on restoring top predators, require information on how resident species may interact with the re-introduced species as their interactions have the potential to alter food webs, yet such data are scarce for Europe. In this study, we assessed patterns of occupancy and interactions between three carnivore species in the Romanian Carpathians. Romania houses one of the few intact carnivore guilds in Europe, making it an ideal system to assess intraguild interactions, and serve as a guide for reintroductions elsewhere. We used camera trap data from two seasons in Transylvanian forests to assess occupancy and co-occurrence of carnivores using multispecies occupancy models. Mean occupancy in the study area was highest for lynx ( Ywinter= 0.76 95% CI: 0.42-0.92; Yautumn= 0.71 CI: 0.38-0.84) and wolf (Ywinter= 0.60 CI: 0.34-0.78; Yautumn= 0.81 CI: 0.25-0.95) and lowest for wildcat (Ywinter= 0.40 CI: 0.19-0.63; ... : Data was collected in the Southern Carpathians, Romania, covering 1,200 km2 in the eastern part of the Făgăraș Mountains, Piatra Craiului, and parts of Leaota Mountains. We divided the study area into a grid of 2.7 km x 2.7 km cells and removed cells with more than ⅔ of their area exceeding 1800 m altitude and cells more than ½ of their area covered by urban landscape features. From the remaining cells, we sampled every other cell, when it was not possible to reach a selected cell, we used an adjacent cell. Each sampled cell contained a trap station, randomly located within the cell. We conducted two seasons of monitoring: (1) December 17th, 2018, to March 31st, 2019 (winter) and (2) October 9th, 2019, to January 15th, 2020 (autumn). We installed 64 camera trap stations during winter, and 76 during autumn, with high spatial overlap between seasons. Each trap station had two opposite cameras installed at a height of 40 to 60 cm positioned towards animal paths. We used two camera models per trap station, a ...