Northern Rocky Research Articles

Preservice Coach Education Students’ Rankings of Coach Characteristics: A Longitudinal Study

Preservice coach education students (PCES) can provide valid insight into the most important coaching characteristics of the successful coach. Over the course of 21 academic semesters from 2002 to 2020, 1,464 PCES responded to a coaching characteristics survey while enrolled in a coach education course (CEC) at a university in the northern Rocky Mountain region of the United States. The PCES completed a survey that required the forced ranking of 10 coaching characteristics. The students’ responses were compiled and analyzed for the categorization of the most important coaching characteristics. This study was to provide the opportunity for PCES to rank preferred coach characteristics, to determine whether significant differences existed between the coach characteristic rankings, and to establish if gender differences were present in the ranking of coach characteristics. Conclusions and recommendations are offered to contribute to the advancement of coach education and insight into the most valued coaching characteristics as determined by the PCES.

Snow patch refugia benefits for species of periglacial zones-Evidence from a high-elevation obligate.

Conserving Earth's most rapidly changing biomes necessitates understanding biological consequences of altered climes. Past species- and taxa-level responses to warming environs include numerous concentrated extirpations at the southern peripheries of distributions during the late Pleistocene. Less clear are localized capacities of cold-adapted species to mitigate thermal challenges against warming temperatures, especially through proximate behavioral and physiological adjustments. Whereas snow patches persist in periglacial zones and elsewhere, broad reductions in seasonal snow raise concerns about how and why species continue to use them. If snow patches play a functional role to combat increasing thermal demands, we predicted individuals would display an array of autonomic responses to increased temperatures modulated by wind, ambient temperature, and winter fur on and away from snow patches. We tested these predictions using a mammalian exemplar of high latitude and high elevation, mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus), using two sites in the northern Rocky Mountains, USA. Surprisingly, and contrary to expectations of reduced thermal stress, respiration rates were not decreased on snow patches but use of snow was strongly correlated with decreased metrics of insect harassment. As snow cover continues to decline in montane environs, the persistence of cold-adapted species depends on navigating concurrent changes in biotic communities and thermal environments and balancing competing pressures on behavioral and biological responses.

Love on the rocks: first field recording of mating behavior described for the genus Castianeira Keyserling, 1879 (Araneae: Corinnidae) in the northern Rocky Mountains, Wyoming, USA

Love on the rocks: first field recording of mating behavior described for the genus Castianeira Keyserling, 1879 (Araneae: Corinnidae) in the northern Rocky Mountains, Wyoming, USA

Mountain glaciers influence biogeochemical and ecological characteristics of high‐elevation lakes across the northern Rocky Mountains, USA

AbstractMountain glaciers are retreating rapidly due to climate change, leading to the formation of downstream lakes. However, little is known about the physical and biogeochemical conditions in these lakes across a range of glacial influence. We surveyed alpine lakes fed by both glacial and snowpack meltwaters and those fed by snowpack alone to compare nutrient concentrations, stoichiometry, water clarity, chlorophyll, and zooplankton communities. Total phosphorus (TP) and soluble reactive phosphorus were two times higher in glacial lakes than in non‐glacial lakes, while nitrate concentrations were three times higher. However, organic carbon concentrations in glacial lakes were two times lower than in non‐glacial lakes. The carbon‐to‐phosphorus ratio and the nitrogen‐to‐phosphorus ratio of lake seston increased with water clarity in glacial lakes, suggesting that turbidity from glacial flour increases light limitation and increases stoichiometric food quality for zooplankton in newly formed lakes. However, chlorophyll a concentrations did not differ between lake types. Through structural equation modeling, we found that glaciers exhibit a bidirectional association with nitrate and TP concentrations, perhaps mediated through landscape vegetation and lake clarity. Zooplankton communities in high‐turbidity glacial lakes were largely composed of cyclopoid copepods and rotifers (i.e., non‐filter feeders), while non‐glacial lakes tended to be dominated by calanoid copepods and cladocerans (i.e., filter feeders). Our results show that glacier‐influenced lakes have biogeochemical and ecological characteristics distinct from snow‐fed mountain lakes. Sustained studies are needed to assess the dynamics of these unique features as the influence of the alpine cryosphere fades under ongoing climate change.

Spatial variation in density of American black bears in northern Yellowstone National Park

AbstractThe quality and availability of resources are known to influence spatial patterns of animal density. In Yellowstone National Park, relationships between the availability of resources and the distribution of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) have been explored but have yet to be examined in American black bears (Ursus americanus). We conducted non‐invasive genetic sampling during 2017–2018 (mid‐May to mid‐July) and applied spatially explicit capture‐recapture models to estimate density of black bears and examine associations with landscape features. In both years, density estimates were higher in forested vegetation communities, which provide food resources and thermal and security cover preferred by black bears, compared with non‐forested areas. In 2017, density also varied by sex, with female densities being higher than males. Based on our estimates, the northern range of Yellowstone National Park supports one of the highest densities of black bears (20 black bears/100 km2) in the northern Rocky Mountains (6–12 black bears/100 km2 in other regions). Given these high densities, black bears could influence other wildlife populations more than previously thought, such as through displacement of sympatric predators from kills. Our study provides the first spatially explicit estimates of density for black bears within an ecosystem that contains the majority of North America's large mammal species. Our density estimates provide a baseline that can be used for future research and management decisions of black bears, including efforts to reduce human–bear conflicts.

Does Rocky Mountain Credit Union Competition still Affect Commercial Bank Interest Rates?

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Cambria',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Historically, increased credit union competition in Idaho and Montana has caused commercial banks to offer higher deposit rates to savers and lower loan rates to borrowers. Data are collected for the second quarter of 2018 to examine whether that pattern still holds true. Unlike prior studies, empirical results indicate that credit union competition no longer exerts statistically reliable impacts on deposit rates or loan rates in this northern Rocky Mountain region of the United States. Potential contributing factors include bank and thrift consolidation in recent years, the low interest rate environment prevailing during the late 2010s, and greater emphasis on non-interest forms of intermediary competition in the banking markets that comprise this regional economy.</span></p>

A cosmogenic 10Be moraine chronology of arid, alpine Late Pleistocene glaciation in the Pioneer Mountains of Montana, USA

We test the hypothesis that glacier systems, located in continental regions proximal to the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS), had local ice maxima considerably earlier than the LIS maximum and thus before the insolation minima at ∼21 ka. Ranges located in the northwest US exhibit earlier deglaciation timing between ∼23 and 22 ka, except for the Yellowstone region where younger time-transgressive ages complicate regional interpretations and the northern Montana ice cap where late glacial ages have recently been produced. Constraining the glacial history of more ice sheet-proximal alpine glaciers provides insight into whether the contrasting maximum-ice times in the northern Rocky Mountains were caused by regional climatic differences, such as anticyclonic wind patterns driven by the presence of the LIS. In the Pioneer Mountains of Montana, we measured in situ cosmogenic 10Be in 35 boulders on moraines marking the maximum Late Pleistocene positions of alpine glaciers from three valleys. The 10Be samples produced a range of ages, spanning pre Bull Lake to the last glaciation (i.e., Pinedale/Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 2). We find an average exposure age for initial deglaciation of 18.2 ± 0.9 during the local Last Glacial Maximum, indicative of synchronous retreat in the Pioneer Mountains. The similarity of initial deglaciation timing of the Pioneer Mountain glaciers with the northwestern Yellowstone glacial system and northern MT ice cap suggests that topography more proximal to the LIS margin maintained full ice extent longer. Our findings, in context of previous work, suggest that in the case of the Pioneer Mountains their more proximal location to the ice margin may have delayed onset of deglaciation by greater exposure to local cooling from katabatic winds and/or additional moisture sourced from large ice-marginal glacial lakes, hence the lack of earlier deglacial ages like those found further to the west and east of the northern Rocky Mountain cordillera.

Wildfire activity in northern Rocky Mountain subalpine forests still within millennial-scale range of variability

Increasing area burned across western North America raises questions about the precedence and magnitude of changes in fire activity, relative to the historical range of variability (HRV) that ecosystems experienced over recent centuries and millennia. Paleoecological records of past fire occurrence provide context for contemporary changes in ecosystems characterized by infrequent, high-severity fire regimes. Here we present a network of 12 fire-history records derived from macroscopic charcoal preserved in sediments of small subalpine lakes within a c. 10 000 km2 landscape in the U.S. northern Rocky Mountains (Northern Rockies). We used this network to characterize landscape-scale burning over the past 2500 yr, and to evaluate the precedence of widespread regional burning experienced in the early 20th and 21st centuries. We further compare the Northern Rockies fire history to a previously published network of fire-history records in the Southern Rockies. In Northern Rockies subalpine forests, widespread fire activity was strongly linked to seasonal climate conditions, in contemporary, historical, and paleo records. The average estimated fire rotation period (FRP) over the past 2500 yr was 164 yr (HRV: 127–225 yr), while the contemporary FRP from 1900 to 2021 CE was 215 yr. Thus, extensive regional burning in the early 20th century (e.g. 1910 CE) and in recent decades remains within the HRV of recent millennia. Results from the Northern Rockies contrast with the Southern Rockies, which burned with less frequency on average over the past 2500 yr, and where 21st-century burning has exceeded the HRV. Our results support expectations that Northern Rockies fire activity will continue to increase with climatic warming, surpassing historical burning if more than one exceptional fire year akin to 1910 occurs within the next several decades. The ecological consequences of climatic warming in subalpine forests will depend, in large part, on the magnitude of fire-regime changes relative to the past.

Spatio-temporal variability in the strength, directionality, and relative importance of climate on occupancy and population densities in a philopatric mammal, the American pika (Ochotona princeps)

Species distribution models (SDMs) have been widely employed to evaluate species–environment relationships. However, when extrapolated over broad spatial scales or through time, these models decline in their predictive ability due to variation in how species respond to their environment. Many models assume species–environment relationships remain constant over space and time, hindering their ability to accurately forecast distributions. Therefore, there is growing recognition that models could be improved by accounting for spatio-temporal nonstationarity – a phenomenon wherein the factors governing ecological processes change over space or time. Here, we investigated nonstationarity in American pika (Ochotona princeps) relationships with climatic variables in the Rocky Mountains (USA). We first compared broad-scale differences in pika–climate patterns for occupancy and population density across the Southern, Central, and Northern Rockies. Next, we investigated within-ecoregion variation across four mountain ranges nested within the Northern Rockies. Lastly, we tested whether species–climate relationships changed over time within the Central Rockies ecoregion. Across all analyses, we found varying levels of nonstationarity among the climate metrics for both occupancy and density. Although we found general congruence in temperature metrics, which consistently had negative coefficients, and moisture metrics (e.g., relative humidity), which had positive coefficients, nonstationarity was greatest for summer and winter precipitation over both space and time. These results suggest that interpretations from one ecoregion should not be applied to other regions universally – especially when using precipitation metrics. The within-ecoregion analysis found much greater variation in the strength-of-relationship coefficients among the four mountain ranges, relative to the inter-regional analysis, possibly attributable to smaller sample sizes per mountain range. Lastly, the importance of several variables shifted through time from significant to insignificant in the temporal analysis. Our results collectively reveal the overall complexity underlying species–environment relationships. With rapidly shifting conditions globally, this work adds to the growing body of literature highlighting how issues of spatio-temporal nonstationarity can limit the accuracy, transferability, and reliability of models and that interpretations will likely be most robust at local to regional scales. Diagnosing, describing, and incorporating nonstationarity of species–climate relationships into models over space and time could serve as a pivotal step in creating more informative models.

Heavy metal concentrations in Canada geese, snow geese, mallards, and American coots from the northern Rocky Mountains in Montana

AbstractThe presence of metals in migratory bird tissues is well established and mining as an anthropogenic source of exposure to metals is well reported in the scientific literature. Determining the difference between what are hypothesized as normal metal levels and those associated with acute mining toxicity is challenging as spatial and temporal overlap of migratory birds with anthropogenic point sources can be highly variable at individual, population, and species levels. We examined the concentrations of 5 geologically prominent metals and metalloids in the region (arsenic, cadmium, copper, manganese, and zinc) in tissues (kidney, n = 64; liver, n = 65; and muscle, n = 65) from 4 species common to the northern Rocky Mountains in western Montana (Canada goose, Branta canadensis, n = 12; snow goose, Anser caerulescens, n = 15; mallard, Anas platyrhynchos, n = 32; and American coot, Fulica americana, n = 6), to identify metal concentrations for comparison to acute mining‐associated mortalities. Metal levels were highly variable across tissue types for all species. For example, the highest concentrations of copper, manganese, and zinc were measured in the liver (18,300, 3,960, and 38,200, respectively; ug/kg), while cadmium levels were highest in the kidney (973 ug/kg). Among species and tissue types, metal levels were also highly variable. For example, copper levels in mallards were highest in the kidney (6,700 ug/kg) and lowest in muscle (2,780 ug/kg). In contrast, copper levels in American coots were highest in muscle (14,400 ug/kg) and lowest in the kidney (5,060 ug/kg). While the wide variation in metal concentrations among species and tissue types measured in our study can make for difficult comparisons, the results are similar to control cases from other peer‐reviewed publications, and several times lower than dose‐response experiments and incidents in which mining‐associated mortality was known. Our results provide metal concentrations in migratory bird species that utilize the northern Rocky Mountains through Montana, which are essential data for assessing exposure, risk, and mortality associated with anthropogenic activities in the region.

Mesic mixed-conifer forests are resilient to both historical high-severity fire and contemporary reburns in the US Northern Rocky Mountains

High-severity fires and short-interval reburns strongly influence forest structure and composition and may overwhelm forest ecosystem resilience and catalyze persistent shifts to non-forest conditions. Recent increases in annual area burned and severity in the western United States (US) highlight the need to better understand the long-term effects of high-severity fire, including interactions with subsequent fires. In the early 20th century, the northern US Rocky Mountains experienced several fire seasons with widespread, high-severity fires, under fire weather comparable with extreme conditions today. The Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in north-central Idaho has remained an active fire regime with limited suppression and management, making it an ideal location to investigate long-term effects of initial high-severity fires, as well as ecosystem resilience to contemporary reburning. Using field sampling informed by fire history data from 1870 to 2020, we investigated the influence of fire frequency (once, twice, and thrice burned from 1910 to 2017) on forest structure, conifer regeneration, and fuel loading in mesic mixed-conifer forests that burned at high severity in either 1910 or 1934. Tree regeneration was abundant across all three burn histories, and 99% of sample sites were <200 m from the nearest conifer seed source when sampled in 2021. Abundance of snags and coarse woody material was less affected by fire frequency and more impacted by time since last fire. High shrub biomass occurred only on steep southwest aspects with low overstory basal area and was not related to burn history. Live tree composition and density differed across forests with contrasting recent fire histories, but even thrice-burned sites supported abundant conifer tree regeneration, indicating that northern Rocky Mountain mesic mixed-conifer forests that experienced fire during the twentieth century currently remain resilient to wildfire. Wildfire as an ecological process in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness likely contributed to ecosystem resilience.

Assessment of Drought Exposure to All-Cause Mortality in the Northern Rockies and Plains of the United States

Assessment of Drought Exposure to All-Cause Mortality in the Northern Rockies and Plains of the United States

The Association between Drought Exposure and Respiratory-Related Mortality in the United States from 2000 to 2018.

Climate change has brought increasing attention to the assessment of health risks associated with climate and extreme events. Drought is a complex climate phenomenon that has been increasing in frequency and severity both locally and globally due to climate change. However, the health risks of drought are often overlooked, especially in places such as the United States, as the pathways to health impacts are complex and indirect. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the effects of monthly drought exposure on respiratory mortality for NOAA climate regions in the United States from 2000 to 2018. A two-stage model was applied to estimate the location-specific and overall effects of respiratory risk associated with two different drought indices over two timescales (the US Drought Monitor and the 6-month and 12-month Evaporative Demand Drought Index). During moderate and severe drought exposure, respiratory mortality risk ratio in the general population increased up to 6.0% (95% Cr: 4.8 to 7.2) in the Northeast, 9.0% (95% Cr: 4.9 to 13.3) in the Northern Rockies and Plains, 5.2% (95% Cr: 3.9 to 6.5) in the Ohio Valley, 3.5% (95% Cr: 1.9 to 5.0) in the Southeast, and 15.9% (95% Cr: 10.8 to 20.4) in the Upper Midwest. Our results showed that age, ethnicity, sex (both male and female), and urbanicity (both metro and non-metro) resulted in more affected population subgroups in certain climate regions. The magnitude and direction of respiratory risk ratio differed across NOAA climate regions. These results demonstrate a need for policymakers and communities to develop more effective strategies to mitigate the effects of drought across regions.

Three-Year Effects of Crown Removal by Clipping or Burning on Beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax) Size and Biomass

Beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax), an evergreen perennial herb of the northern Rocky Mountains, Pacific Northwest, and northern California, is used in Native American basketry and commercial floral greens. We studied beargrass size and biomass responses to crown removal by clipping or burning over three years in a coast Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii) woodland with variable shrub cover in the southeastern Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. Clipping forested plants resulted in 28% mortality, mostly from smaller plants growing under 26% more total cover than the surviving plants; however, only 3% of completely crown-scorched open-grown plants died. Three years after treatment, crown width of surviving plants was only 61% of the pre-treatment size for clipped plants, compared to 88% for completely crown-scorched plants. Regression analyses indicated that the percentage of crown scorch accounted for only 16% and 27% of crown width and foliar height variation, respectively, one year post-burn, decreasing to 10% and 19% at three years post-burn. During the three years after burning, percentage flowering increased linearly to 64% of plants. Three years post-burn, foliar browse was higher on crown-scorched than on non-crown-scorched plants. Although shade tolerant, long-term survival of lowland beargrass is likely limited by combined competition from shrubs and trees. Stand density management is needed to maintain healthy, reproducing populations in the lowlands of western Washington.

Less fuel for the next fire? Short-interval fire delays forest recovery and interacting drivers amplify effects.

As 21st-century climate and disturbance dynamics depart from historic baselines, ecosystem resilience is uncertain. Multiple drivers are changing simultaneously, and interactions among drivers could amplify ecosystem vulnerability to change. Subalpine forests in Greater Yellowstone (Northern Rocky Mountains, USA) were historically resilient to infrequent (100-300 year), severe fire. We sampled paired short-interval (<30-year) and long-interval (>125-year) post-fire plots most recently burned between 1988 and 2018 to address two questions: (1) How do short-interval fire, climate, topography, and distance to unburned live forest edge interact to affect post-fire forest regeneration? (2) How do forest biomass and fuels vary following short-interval versus long-interval severe fires? Mean post-fire live tree stem density was an order of magnitude lower following short-interval versus long-interval fires (3240 vs. 28,741 stems ha-1 , respectively). Differences between paired plots were amplified at longer distances to live forest edge. Surprisingly, warmer-drier climate was associated with higher seedling densities even after short-interval fire, likely relating to regional variation in serotiny of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia). Unlike conifers, density of aspen (Populus tremuloides), a deciduous resprouter, increased with short-interval versus long-interval fires (mean 384 vs. 62 stems ha-1 , respectively). Live biomass and canopy fuels remained low nearly 30 years after short-interval fire, in contrast with rapid recovery after long-interval fire, suggesting that future burn severity may be reduced for several decades following reburns. Short-interval plots also had half as much dead woody biomass compared with long-interval plots (60 vs. 121 Mg ha-1 ), primarily due to the absence of large snags. Our results suggest differences in tree regeneration following short-interval versus long-interval fires will be especially pronounced where serotiny was high historically. Propagule limitation will also interact with short-interval fires to diminish tree regeneration but lessen subsequent burn severity. Amplifying driver interactions are likely to threaten forest resilience under expected trajectories of a future fire.

Early dispersal of domestic horses into the Great Plains and northern Rockies

The horse is central to many Indigenous cultures across the American Southwest and the Great Plains. However, when and how horses were first integrated into Indigenous lifeways remain contentious, with extant models derived largely from colonial records. We conducted an interdisciplinary study of an assemblage of historic archaeological horse remains, integrating genomic, isotopic, radiocarbon, and paleopathological evidence. Archaeological and modern North American horses show strong Iberian genetic affinities, with later influx from British sources, but no Viking proximity. Horses rapidly spread from the south into the northern Rockies and central plains by the first half of the 17th century CE, likely through Indigenous exchange networks. They were deeply integrated into Indigenous societies before the arrival of 18th-century European observers, as reflected in herd management, ceremonial practices, and culture.

Structural control of Cambrian paleotopography and patterns of transgression in western Laurentia

Abstract The Cambrian transgression across the Great Unconformity produced one of the largest expansions of shallow marine habitats and associated diversification of marine invertebrate faunas in Earth history. However, identification of the underlying controls on the pattern of transgression of Cambrian seas has been hampered by imprecise or inaccurate age assignments for many formations. Recovery of an Ehmaniella Zone trilobite fauna from the Lodore Formation in northwestern Colorado (United States) revises the age of this unit to be significantly older, specifically middle Miaolingian (upper Wuliuan). This expands the established distribution of thick Miaolingian deposits of the northern Rocky Mountains to within 90 km of a broad region of central Colorado where Miaolingian strata are missing and Furongian successions rest directly on basement. The boundary between these two regions marks the position of an ~200 km east-west offset within the generally north-south–trending Cambrian paleoshoreline of western North America. The offset is co-located with a Precambrian continental suture zone (Cheyenne belt) at the northern Yavapai terrane margin and is directly east of an offset of similar magnitude and latitude in the early to middle Paleozoic shelf edge in Nevada. We thus posit that Precambrian deep-seated crustal-scale features controlled the Cambrian paleotopography of western Laurentia, strongly influencing the patterns of Cambrian transgression and structure of the shallow marine ecosystem established during continental submergence. These continental-scale structural elements remained a major control on marine paleogeography for &amp;gt;200 m.y. into the late Paleozoic.

Surface ozone trends and related mortality across the climate regions of the contiguous United States during the most recent climate period, 1991–2020

In this study, we leverage multiple linear regression and quantile regression combined with a novel deep learning tool (SHapley Additive exPlanations) to isolate the impact of meteorology on surface ozone pollution and to assess the effectiveness of emission reduction measures across the Contiguous United States (US) during the latest climate period (1991–2020). The findings demonstrate that all regions except the Northern Rockies and the Southwest experienced decreasing trends in median values during the warm season, with rural stations in the Southeast and urban stations in the Northeast experiencing the greatest declines of −1.29 ± 0.07 and −0.85 ± 0.08 ppb.a−1, respectively. Similar to the original data, the median values of adjusted MDA8 (Maximum Daily 8-h Average) ozone show negative trends in all regions except for Southwest urban stations, with the highest recorded in rural stations of the Southeast (−1.13 ± 0.05 ppb.a−1) and urban stations of the Northeast (−0.79 ± 0.06 ppb.a−1). In addition, the 95th percentile values of original and adjusted MDA8 ozone decreased in all regions in which Northeast urban stations had the greatest reduction (original: 3.53 ± 0.29 ppb.a−1, adjusted: 2.96 ± 0.27 ppb.a−1). Our results suggest that meteorological inter-annual variability reduces the ozone burden during the warm season in the eastern US and southern California; at the same time, it contributes to increased ozone pollution in the central US, Southwest, and northern California, indicating that efforts to reduce air pollution may be hindered by climate change. Our analysis of the impact of short-term exposure to ozone on health shows that the South was the most positively impacted by emission control policies implemented after 2000, and the Northeast had the highest number of prevented deaths (30.45 deaths prevented/million people) resulting from respiratory diseases. The results of this study should benefit air quality managers and policymakers, particularly in their efforts to update ozone mitigation strategies.

Canada lynx occupancy and density in Glacier National Park

AbstractProtected areas are the cornerstone of conservation strategies for threatened and endangered species. Because protected areas often are insulated from many anthropogenic threats, and contain substantial topographic relief, they may be particularly important as climatic refugia for cold‐adapted, at‐risk species. Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) are a cold‐adapted, threatened species, and reach the southern limits of their distribution in the contiguous United States, where they exist in several disjunct populations largely on multiple‐use lands (e.g., national forests). Glacier National Park (GNP) is one of the few, large, protected areas located within Canada lynx range in the contiguous United States, and therefore a potentially important lynx stronghold within the Northern Rockies lynx recovery unit. Despite its potential importance, knowledge of lynx populations within the park is extremely limited. We completed a park‐wide occupancy survey of lynx using an array of motion‐sensitive cameras during summers in 2018–2021. Within a smaller area of the park, we also estimated lynx density by identifying individuals from subtle markings on the inside of the front leg and employing spatially explicit capture‐recapture analysis. Finally, we linked park‐wide predictions of occupancy with local density to estimate lynx population size across GNP. Lynx were distributed across much of the park in summer and occupancy was influenced by a combination of snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) relative abundance, forest associations, climate, and fire. We were able to successfully identify approximately 75% of lynx captures to individual based on coat markings. Although average park‐wide lynx density was low (1.28/100 km2) compared to populations in the core of the range, park‐wide abundance was substantial for this threatened predator (52; 95% CI = 30–92). Based on our results, we propose that GNP should be considered as a potentially important area for lynx habitat refugia in a warming climate. Moreover, our ability to rapidly assess distribution and density using camera deployments in summer could be useful for long‐term monitoring and recovery assessment.

Grizzly bear movement models predict habitat use for nearby populations

Conservation planning and decision-making can be enhanced by ecological models that reliably transfer to times and places beyond those where models were developed. Transferrable models can be especially helpful for species of conservation concern, such as grizzly bears (Ursus arctos). Currently, only four grizzly bear populations remain in the contiguous United States. We evaluated transferability of previously derived individual-based, integrated step selection functions (iSSFs) developed from GPS-collared grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem by applying them within the nearby Selkirk (SE), Cabinet-Yaak (CYE), and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystems (GYE). We simulated 100 replicates of 5000 steps for each iSSF in each ecosystem, summarized relative use into 10 equal-area classes for each sex, and overlaid GPS locations from bears in the SE, CYE, and GYE on resulting maps. Spearman rank correlations between numbers of locations and class rank were ≥ 0.96 within each study area, indicating models were highly predictive of grizzly bear space use in these nearby populations. Assessment of models using smaller subsets of data in space and time demonstrated generally high predictive accuracy for females. Although generally high across space and time, predictive accuracy for males was low within some watersheds and in summer within the SE and CYE, potentially due to seasonal effects, vegetation, and food assemblage differences. Altogether, these results demonstrated high transferability of our models to landscapes in the Northern Rocky Mountains, suggesting they may be used to evaluate habitat suitability and connectivity throughout the region to benefit conservation planning.