Modeling Moose Habitat Use And Fitness Consequences Of Habitat Selection In Vermont, Usa

• Main Author: Blouin, Joshua Alexander
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: UVM ScholarWorks 2021
• Subjects: Habitat Management; Habitat Selection; Lidar; Moose; resource utilization function; Wildlife Management; Natural Resources Management and Policy; Alces alces
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/1391; https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/context/graddis/article/2392/viewcontent/Blouin_uvm_0243N_11160.pdf

The moose (Alces alces) population has been declining across the northeastern US largely due to the impacts of winter ticks (Dermacentor albipictus). In epizootic years, an individual moose can host a staggering number of ticks (> 60,000), affecting both survival and reproduction. Habitat management may be used to improve the status of the moose population and health of individuals, but this requires knowledge of key habitat types used by moose and their spatial distribution. We investigated 1) habitat use by moose and 2) the fitness consequences of habitat selection during two critical winter tick life stages in northeastern Vermont. To assess habitat use, we combined more than 41,000 moose locations collected from radio-collared individuals (n = 74), recent land cover data, and high resolution, three-dimensional lidar data to develop Resource Utilization Functions that linked home range use to habitat characteristics by age, season, and sex. In general, the home ranges of female moose had proportionally more regenerative forest and canopy structure, while male home ranges consisted of mixed forests at higher elevations. Winter ticks tend to be fairly immobile throughout all life stages, and therefore their distribution patterns at any given time are shaped by the occurrence of moose across the landscape during the peak of two critical time periods: fall questing (when ticks latch onto a moose) and spring drop-off (when engorged female ticks detach from moose). We used a dynamic occupancy modeling framework to estimate habitat selection of female moose (n = 74) during these periods. Further, we investigated if habitat selection decisions made by adult females during the fall questing period influenced the survival of their offspring through the winter. Adult females whose offspring perished selected habitats during the questing period that were characterized by higher proportions of young mixed forests at higher elevations. In contrast, adult females whose offspring survived selected areas characterized by ...