Winter Resource Selection of Reintroduced Elk and Sympatric White-tailed Deer at Multiple Spatial Scales

Abstract

Abstract Understanding limiting factors and interspecific interactions is fundamental to wildlife management and can be inferred from multiscale patterns of resource selection. We studied winter resource selection and overlap of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and translocated female elk (Cervus elaphus) over 2 winters in central Ontario, Canada. Microhabitat data were collected along 4 organism-centered spatial scales: site, trail, feeding station, and diet. Although winter conditions varied between years, white-tailed deer consistently traveled and fed in habitats with greater coniferous basal area than elk. Neither species demonstrated selection for coniferous basal area or snow depth across scales. At successively finer scales, female elk selected increased understory cover of trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides). For white-tailed deer, across-scale selection of sugar maple (Acer saccharum) understory cover was exhibited when winter conditions were more severe. Dietary overlap was moderate...