Delineating demographic units of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Ontario: cautions and insights
Delineating demographic structure across an organism’s range can reveal the extent to which population dynamics in different geographic areas are driven by local or external factors and can be crucial for effective conservation and management. Obtaining optimal data for such analyses can be time and...
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Septentrio Academic Publishing
2012
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Online Access: | https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/rangifer/article/view/2267 https://doi.org/10.7557/2.32.2.2267 |
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ftunitroemsoe:oai:ojs.henry.ub.uit.no:article/2267 2023-05-15T18:03:55+02:00 Delineating demographic units of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Ontario: cautions and insights Shuter, Jennifer L. Rodgers, Arthur R. 2012-03-08 application/pdf https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/rangifer/article/view/2267 https://doi.org/10.7557/2.32.2.2267 eng eng Septentrio Academic Publishing https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/rangifer/article/view/2267/2108 https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/rangifer/article/view/2267 doi:10.7557/2.32.2.2267 Copyright (c) 2015 Jennifer L. Shuter, Arthur R. Rodgers http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ CC-BY Rangifer; Vol 32 (2012): Special Issue No. 20; 159-181 1890-6729 cluster analysis demographic units Ontario population delineation population monitoring Rangifer tarandus caribou woodland caribou info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 2012 ftunitroemsoe https://doi.org/10.7557/2.32.2.2267 2021-08-16T15:11:17Z Delineating demographic structure across an organism’s range can reveal the extent to which population dynamics in different geographic areas are driven by local or external factors and can be crucial for effective conservation and management. Obtaining optimal data for such analyses can be time and resource-intensive and impending development and resource extraction pressures may necessitate the examination of existing data, even when they are less than ideal. We analyzed a historic telemetry dataset containing satellite radio-collar locations of 73 forest-dwelling woodland caribou in northern Ontario to determine demographic structure. We applied several clustering methods (i.e., agglomerative, divisive and fuzzy k-means) to median seasonal locations. Results were used to distinguish demographic units and minimum convex polygons and fixed-kernel density estimates were used to delineate unit boundaries and core areas. For areas where sampling was considered representative of the distribution of caribou on the landscape, we assessed demographic distinctness by evaluating intra-individual variation in cluster membership, membership strength and distance between boundaries and core areas of adjacent units. The number and composition of clusters identified was similar among methods and caribou were grouped into 6 general clusters. The distinctions between the three clusters identified in the central portion of the province (i.e., Lac Seul, Wabakimi, Geraldton) and the two clusters identified in the eastern portion of the province (i.e., Cochrane and Cochrane-Quebec) were determined to represent demographic structuring. Additional distinctions in other areas (i.e., between The Red Lake and Lac Seul clusters in the west and between the central and eastern clusters) may just be artifacts of the original sampling effort. Amongst demographic units, there was no evidence of individual flexibility in cluster membership and average membership strength was very high. There was little to no overlap between boundaries and core areas of adjacent units, but distances between adjacent unit boundaries were relatively low. Additional sampling effort is needed to further delineate demographic structure in Ontario caribou. Article in Journal/Newspaper Rangifer Rangifer tarandus University of Tromsø: Septentrio Academic Publishing Red Lake ENVELOPE(-113.118,-113.118,63.267,63.267) Rangifer 159 181 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Tromsø: Septentrio Academic Publishing |
op_collection_id |
ftunitroemsoe |
language |
English |
topic |
cluster analysis demographic units Ontario population delineation population monitoring Rangifer tarandus caribou woodland caribou |
spellingShingle |
cluster analysis demographic units Ontario population delineation population monitoring Rangifer tarandus caribou woodland caribou Shuter, Jennifer L. Rodgers, Arthur R. Delineating demographic units of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Ontario: cautions and insights |
topic_facet |
cluster analysis demographic units Ontario population delineation population monitoring Rangifer tarandus caribou woodland caribou |
description |
Delineating demographic structure across an organism’s range can reveal the extent to which population dynamics in different geographic areas are driven by local or external factors and can be crucial for effective conservation and management. Obtaining optimal data for such analyses can be time and resource-intensive and impending development and resource extraction pressures may necessitate the examination of existing data, even when they are less than ideal. We analyzed a historic telemetry dataset containing satellite radio-collar locations of 73 forest-dwelling woodland caribou in northern Ontario to determine demographic structure. We applied several clustering methods (i.e., agglomerative, divisive and fuzzy k-means) to median seasonal locations. Results were used to distinguish demographic units and minimum convex polygons and fixed-kernel density estimates were used to delineate unit boundaries and core areas. For areas where sampling was considered representative of the distribution of caribou on the landscape, we assessed demographic distinctness by evaluating intra-individual variation in cluster membership, membership strength and distance between boundaries and core areas of adjacent units. The number and composition of clusters identified was similar among methods and caribou were grouped into 6 general clusters. The distinctions between the three clusters identified in the central portion of the province (i.e., Lac Seul, Wabakimi, Geraldton) and the two clusters identified in the eastern portion of the province (i.e., Cochrane and Cochrane-Quebec) were determined to represent demographic structuring. Additional distinctions in other areas (i.e., between The Red Lake and Lac Seul clusters in the west and between the central and eastern clusters) may just be artifacts of the original sampling effort. Amongst demographic units, there was no evidence of individual flexibility in cluster membership and average membership strength was very high. There was little to no overlap between boundaries and core areas of adjacent units, but distances between adjacent unit boundaries were relatively low. Additional sampling effort is needed to further delineate demographic structure in Ontario caribou. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Shuter, Jennifer L. Rodgers, Arthur R. |
author_facet |
Shuter, Jennifer L. Rodgers, Arthur R. |
author_sort |
Shuter, Jennifer L. |
title |
Delineating demographic units of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Ontario: cautions and insights |
title_short |
Delineating demographic units of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Ontario: cautions and insights |
title_full |
Delineating demographic units of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Ontario: cautions and insights |
title_fullStr |
Delineating demographic units of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Ontario: cautions and insights |
title_full_unstemmed |
Delineating demographic units of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Ontario: cautions and insights |
title_sort |
delineating demographic units of woodland caribou (rangifer tarandus caribou) in ontario: cautions and insights |
publisher |
Septentrio Academic Publishing |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/rangifer/article/view/2267 https://doi.org/10.7557/2.32.2.2267 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-113.118,-113.118,63.267,63.267) |
geographic |
Red Lake |
geographic_facet |
Red Lake |
genre |
Rangifer Rangifer tarandus |
genre_facet |
Rangifer Rangifer tarandus |
op_source |
Rangifer; Vol 32 (2012): Special Issue No. 20; 159-181 1890-6729 |
op_relation |
https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/rangifer/article/view/2267/2108 https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/rangifer/article/view/2267 doi:10.7557/2.32.2.2267 |
op_rights |
Copyright (c) 2015 Jennifer L. Shuter, Arthur R. Rodgers http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7557/2.32.2.2267 |
container_title |
Rangifer |
container_start_page |
159 |
op_container_end_page |
181 |
_version_ |
1766175134842880000 |