Spatiotemporal dynamics of mesocarnivore populations

Xingan Xingan,Guiming Wang

doi:10.2981/wlb.00429

Abstract

Mammalian mesocarnivores play critical roles in ecosystems via trophic interactions. The fluctuation of mesocarnivore abundance may cause trophic cascading throughout the ecosystems. However, little was known about density dependence and spatiotemporal dynamics of mesocarnivore populations. Northern raccoon Procyon lotor is a common mammalian mesocarnivore in North America, and is the host of many human infectious diseases. Few studies have investigated density dependence and hierarchical spatiotemporal dynamics of raccoon populations. We used 23‐year time series of raccoon relative abundance from 14 wildlife management areas in Mississippi, USA, to test for spatial synchrony of raccoon populations with nonparametric correlation functions. We developed non‐Gaussian state space models to detect density dependence of raccoon populations, and also used dynamic factor analysis (DFA) to determine the structure of the spatiotemporal dynamics of raccoon populations. The 14 raccoon populations lacked common trends, and were not synchronized. Strength of density dependence varied among raccoon populations, but was not related to the amount of hardwood forests. Differences in the structure of density dependence probably prevented populations from being synchronize by climatic variability. The raccoon populations exhibited greater local or idiosyncratic variability than regional variability in Mississippi. Northern raccoons have plastic life history traits permitting their population dynamics to closely track local variations in resource availability.

Highlights

BioOne sees sustainable scholarly publishing as an inherently collaborative enterprise connecting authors, nonprofit publishers, academic institutions, research libraries, and research funders in the common goal of maximizing access to critical research
Long-term means of raccoon capture per unit effort (CPUE) averaged 0.69 and ranged from 0.31 to 0.81 over wildlife management areas (WMAs)
Model selection indicated that all raccoon populations but the O’Keefe, Old River and Sandy Creek WMAs had density dependence, with the AICc of density dependent models being less than that of density independent models by 2.0 or more (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

BioOne sees sustainable scholarly publishing as an inherently collaborative enterprise connecting authors, nonprofit publishers, academic institutions, research libraries, and research funders in the common goal of maximizing access to critical research. Few studies have investigated density dependence and hierarchical spatiotemporal dynamics of raccoon populations. Differences in the structure of density dependence probably prevented populations from being synchronize by climatic variability. Dispersal, climatic changes, and predation that operate on large spatial scales may synchronize the dynamics of many populations over landscapes (Bjørnstad et al 1999, Zuur et al 2003, Liebhold et al 2004). The regional dynamics of many geographically distinct populations may be scale-dependent, including one or several common trends or population growth trajectories and local or population-specific variability (Zuur et al 2003, Fauchald et al 2017). Climatic variability may synchronize the dynamics of many populations (Moran’s effect) on large spatial scales (Moran 1953, Ranta et al 1997). We explicitly extended the statistical assumptions of the Moran effect to: 1) the shared or similar population growth trajectory; and 2) residual correlations among synchronized population time series and with climatic drivers

Methods

Results

Conclusion