| Summary: | The raccoon dog is a highly invasive mammalian predator that threatens the nests of ground-nesting birds in Europe. In Finland, the raccoon dog is a more common nest visitor than any other native or invasive mammal species in the breeding habitats of waterbirds. Studying the habitat selection of the species is important to understand the nest predation risks caused by it. In my thesis, I studied the home ranges and habitat selection of the raccoon dog. My aims were to see if there were differences in the home ranges between three different Finnish landscape types and to investigate whether the spatial and temporal habitat preferences of raccoon dogs cause a particular risk for ground-nesting birds during the critical nesting period. I used data from 26 GPS-collared raccoon dogs from three regions representing three landscape types: i) southern coastal region, ii) southern inland region and iii) Northern Finland. Both southern regions had seven collared individuals each and the northern region had 12 collared individuals. I estimated the home ranges of raccoon dogs using autocorrelated kernel density estimation (AKDE) and studied habitat selection using infinitely weighed logistic regression based resource selection functions (RSF). I compared home range sizes between the three regions. Habitat selection was studied during the breeding season of ground-nesting birds to get relevant information about the preferences when the risk for birds is highest. To study temporal differences in habitat selection, I compared the breeding season to the non-breeding season. I found the home ranges to be the largest in Northern Finland. Raccoon dogs showed clear spatial and temporal preferences for wetlands as well as for peatlands. They also preferred the edge areas of agricultural fields, water bodies and forests more than the interior areas. Agricultural field edges were also one of the most used habitats in Northern Finland and in the southern coast. Raccoon dogs did not avoid any habitat in the coastal region. In the ...
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