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Space Use and Movement of Urban Bobcats
SIMPLE SUMMARY: The bobcat (Lynx rufus) is a medium-sized carnivore that lives in remote and urban habitats. Here, we evaluate how bobcats exploit a highly urbanized section of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, Texas, USA by evaluating their space use and activity patterns. We found that bobcats use...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6563108/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31137650 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani9050275 |
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author | Young, Julie K. Golla, Julie Draper, John P. Broman, Derek Blankenship, Terry Heilbrun, Richard |
author_facet | Young, Julie K. Golla, Julie Draper, John P. Broman, Derek Blankenship, Terry Heilbrun, Richard |
author_sort | Young, Julie K. |
collection | PubMed |
description | SIMPLE SUMMARY: The bobcat (Lynx rufus) is a medium-sized carnivore that lives in remote and urban habitats. Here, we evaluate how bobcats exploit a highly urbanized section of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, Texas, USA by evaluating their space use and activity patterns. We found that bobcats use more natural habitat areas within urban areas, such as agricultural fields and creeks, and avoid highly anthropogenic features, such as roads. Bobcat home ranges overlap one another, especially in areas with preferred habitat types, but they are neither avoiding nor attracted to one another during their daily movements. This study highlights how bobcats are able to navigate a built environment and the importance of green space in such places. ABSTRACT: Global urbanization is rapidly changing the landscape for wildlife species that must learn to persist in declining wild spacing, adapt, or risk extinction. Many mesopredators have successfully exploited urban niches, and research on these species in an urban setting offers insights into the traits that facilitate their success. In this study, we examined space use and activity patterns from GPS-collared bobcats (Lynx rufus) in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, Texas, USA. We found that bobcats select for natural/agricultural features, creeks, and water ways and there is greater home-range overlap in these habitats. They avoid roads and are less likely to have home-range overlap in habitats with more roads. Home-range size is relatively small and overlap relatively high, with older animals showing both greater home-range size and overlap. Simultaneous locations suggest bobcats are neither avoiding nor attracted to one another, despite the high overlap across home ranges. Finally, bobcats are active at all times of day and night. These results suggest that access to natural features and behavioral plasticity may enable bobcats to live in highly developed landscapes. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6563108 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-65631082019-06-17 Space Use and Movement of Urban Bobcats Young, Julie K. Golla, Julie Draper, John P. Broman, Derek Blankenship, Terry Heilbrun, Richard Animals (Basel) Article SIMPLE SUMMARY: The bobcat (Lynx rufus) is a medium-sized carnivore that lives in remote and urban habitats. Here, we evaluate how bobcats exploit a highly urbanized section of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, Texas, USA by evaluating their space use and activity patterns. We found that bobcats use more natural habitat areas within urban areas, such as agricultural fields and creeks, and avoid highly anthropogenic features, such as roads. Bobcat home ranges overlap one another, especially in areas with preferred habitat types, but they are neither avoiding nor attracted to one another during their daily movements. This study highlights how bobcats are able to navigate a built environment and the importance of green space in such places. ABSTRACT: Global urbanization is rapidly changing the landscape for wildlife species that must learn to persist in declining wild spacing, adapt, or risk extinction. Many mesopredators have successfully exploited urban niches, and research on these species in an urban setting offers insights into the traits that facilitate their success. In this study, we examined space use and activity patterns from GPS-collared bobcats (Lynx rufus) in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, Texas, USA. We found that bobcats select for natural/agricultural features, creeks, and water ways and there is greater home-range overlap in these habitats. They avoid roads and are less likely to have home-range overlap in habitats with more roads. Home-range size is relatively small and overlap relatively high, with older animals showing both greater home-range size and overlap. Simultaneous locations suggest bobcats are neither avoiding nor attracted to one another, despite the high overlap across home ranges. Finally, bobcats are active at all times of day and night. These results suggest that access to natural features and behavioral plasticity may enable bobcats to live in highly developed landscapes. MDPI 2019-05-24 /pmc/articles/PMC6563108/ /pubmed/31137650 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani9050275 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Young, Julie K. Golla, Julie Draper, John P. Broman, Derek Blankenship, Terry Heilbrun, Richard Space Use and Movement of Urban Bobcats |
title | Space Use and Movement of Urban Bobcats |
title_full | Space Use and Movement of Urban Bobcats |
title_fullStr | Space Use and Movement of Urban Bobcats |
title_full_unstemmed | Space Use and Movement of Urban Bobcats |
title_short | Space Use and Movement of Urban Bobcats |
title_sort | space use and movement of urban bobcats |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6563108/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31137650 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani9050275 |
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