Influence of landscape factors on density of suburban white-tailed deer

Abstract

Resource management agencies and urban planners require information from large-scale assessments of factors affecting suburban white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) density to guide deer management and urban development. We assessed the influence of landscape factors on density of suburban deer on 40 forest preserves in northeastern Illinois during 1999–2002. We created candidate model sets for 3 spatial scales: preserve (15–1238ha; 29 models), buffer-only (132–1335ha; 24 models), and total area (147–2322ha; 33 models). We selected models using AICc and obtained 3–10 top models for each model set which constituted 50–89% of the Akaike weights. Using supported variables in these model sets, we created a new final model set (35 models) in which 8 models contributed to 95% of the top Akaike weights. Patch density of agricultural land within preserve borders (ω=0.95; β′=0.47), the mean nearest neighbor distance between all cover patches within preserve borders (ω=0.95; β′=0.38), the diversity of patch types within preserve borders (ω=0.66; β′=−0.24), and the percent core area of forested land within preserve borders (ω=0.52; β′=0.21) were the strongest predictors of suburban deer density. Natural resource managers should limit agricultural practices, reduce core areas of forest patches, and increase diversity of land cover patches within preserve borders to potentially reduce deer densities and limit deer population growth.