Abstract
Fragmentation and human-wildlife conflicts represent severe threats to wildcats such as the kodkod cat (Leopardus guigna), endemic to the heavily impacted Chilean temperate rainforest. Here we assess to which extent this vulnerable forest specialist is able to use altered habitat (agricultural matrix, forest edge, human presence) by studying its home ranges, habitat use, and patch selection in privately owned rainforest remnants. We radio-tracked five individuals over 33–376 days. Mean 95% kernel home ranges were 623 ha, with a mean 50% core area of 191 ha. Ecological-niche and Mahalanobis distance factor analysis confirmed forest-dependency and revealed that the individuals made intensive use of forest edges, close to water. They did not avoid houses. Generalized linear mixed models showed that the monitored kodkods selected elongated woodland patches. We conclude that the kodkods compensated the non-forest space by maintaining larger home ranges and making efficient use of forest edges probably due to higher prey availability. Future studies should identify ecological traps, and describe connectivity and source-sink dynamics in the agricultural matrix to develop long-term conservation efforts for the smallest cat of the Americas.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Acosta-Jamett, G., Simonetti, G.A., 2004. Habitat use by Oncifelis guigna and Pseudalopex culpaeus in a fragmented forest landscape in central Chile. Biodivers. Conserv. 13, 1135–1151.
Aebischer, N.J., Robertson, P.A., Kenward, R.E., 1993. Compositional analysis of habitat use from animal radio-tracking data. Ecology 74, 1313–1325.
Azlan, J.M., Sharma, D.S.K., 2006. The diversity and activity patterns of wild felids in a secondary forest in Peninsular Malaysia. Oryx 40, 36–41.
Bates, D., Maechler, M., 2009. Package ‘lme4’. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/lme4/lme4.pdf. (Accessed 15 May 2014).
Calenge, C., Basille, M., 2008. A general framework for the statistical exploration of the ecological niche. J. Theor. Biol. 252, 674–685.
Calenge, C., Darmon, G., Basille, M., 2008. The factorial decomposition of the Mahalanobis distances in habitat selection studies. Ecology 98, 555–566.
Calenge, C., 2006. The package adehabitat for the R software: a tool for the analysis of space and habitat use by animals. Ecol. Modell. 197, 516–519.
Cardillo, M., Mace, G.M., Jones, K.E., Bielby, J., Biminda-Emonds, O.R.P., Sechrest, W., Orme, C.D.L., Purvis, A., 2005. Multiple causes of high extinction in large mammal species. Science 309, 1239–1241.
Castro-Bustamante, R.A., 2014. Comparing Methods for Assessing Habitat Connectivity: A Case Study of Güinas (Leopardus guigna) in a Fragmented Chilean Landscape. University of Minnessota, St. Paul, M.S. Thesis.
Colchero, F., Conde, D.A., Manterola, C., Chávez, C., Rivera, A., Ceballos, G., 2010. Jaguars on the move: modeling movement to mitigate fragmentation from road expansion in the Mayan Forest. Anim. Conserv. 14, 158–166.
Crooks, K.R., Burdett, C.L., Theobald, D.M., Rondinini, C., Boitani, L., 2011. Global patterns of fragmentation and connectivity of mammalian carnivore habitat. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 2642–2651.
Díaz, I., Papic, C., Armesto, J.J., 1999. An assessment of post-dispersal seed predation in temperate rain forest fragments in Chiloé Island, Chile. Oikos 87, 228–238.
Delibes, M., Gaona, P., Ferreras, P., 2001. Effects of an attractive sink leading into maladaptive habitat selection. Am. Nat. 158, 277–285.
Delibes-Mateos, M., Díaz-Ruiz, F., Caro, J., Ferreras, P., 2014. Activity patterns of the vulnerable guigna (Leopardus guigna) and its main prey in the Valdivian rainforest of southern Chile. Mamm. Biol. 79, 393–397.
DMC Dirección Meteorológica de Chile, 2001. Climatología Regional. http://www.meteochile.gob.cl. (Accessed 17 November 2015).
Donoso, D., Grez, A., Simonetti, J., 2003. Effects of forest fragmentation on the granivory of differently sized seeds. Biol. Conserv. 115, 63–70.
Dunstone, N., Durbin, L., Wyllie, I., Freer, R., Acosta, G., Mazzolli, M., Rose, S., 2002. Spatial organization, ranging behavior and habitat use of the kodkod (Oncifelis guigna) in southern Chile. J. Zool. 257, 1–11.
ESRI, 2014. Ver. 10.1. Environmental System Research Institute, Inc., Redlands, California.
Ferreras, P., Rodríguez, A., Palomares, F., Delibes, M., 2010. Iberian Lynx: the uncertain future of a critically endangered cat. In: Macdonald, D.W., Loveridge, A.J. (Eds.), Biology and Conservation of Wild Felids. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 507–520.
Fleschutz, M.M., Gálvez, N., Pe’er, G., Davies, Z.G., Henle, K., Schüttler, E., 2016. Response of a small felid of conservation concern to habitat fragmentation. Biodivers. Conserv. 25, 1447–1463 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1118-6.
Foster, R.J., Harmsen, B.J., Doncaster, C.P., 2010. Habitat use by sympatric jaguars and pumas across a gradient of human disturbance in Belize. Biotropica 42, 724–731.
Freer, R., 2004. The Spatial Ecology of the Güiña (Oncifelis guigna) in Southern Chile. University of Durham, Durham, Ph.D. Dissertation.
Galuppo-Gaete, S.E., 2014. Diet and Activity Patterns of Leopardus guigna in Relation to Prey Availability in Forest Fragments of the Chilean Temperate Rainforest. University of Minnessota, St. Paul, M.S. Thesis.
Gálvez, N., Hernández, F., Laker, J., Gilabert, H., Petitpas, R., Bonacic, C., Gimona, A., Hester, A., Macdonald, D.W., 2013. Forest cover outside protected areas plays an important role in the conservation of the vulnerable guiña Leopardus guigna. Oryx 47, 251–258.
Hirzel, A.H., Hausser, J., Chessel, D., Perrin, N., 2002. Ecological-Niche Factor Analysis: how to compute habitat-suitability maps without absence data? Ecology 83, 2027–2036.
Inskip, C., Zimmermann, A., 2009. Human-felid conflict: a review of patterns and priorities worldwide. Oryx 43, 18–34.
Jaksic, F.M., Lima, M., 2003. Myths and facts on ratadas: Bamboo blooms, rainfall peaks and rodent outbreaks in South America. Aust. Ecol. 28, 237–251.
Klar, N., Fernández, N., Kramer-Schadt, S., Herrmann, M., Trinzen, M., Büttner, I., Niemitz, C., 2008. Habitat selection models for European wildcat conservation. Biol. Conserv. 141, 308–319.
Klar, N., Herrmann, M., Kramer-Schadt, S., 2009. Effects and mitigation of road impacts on individual movement behavior of wildcats. J. Wildl. Manage. 73, 631–638.
Laver, P.N., Kelly, M.J., 2008. A critical review of home range studies. J. Wildl. Manage. 72, 290–298.
LOAS, 2012. Ver. 4.0. Ecological Software Solutions, Hungary.
Luebert, F., Pliscoff, P., 2006. Sinopsis Bioclimática Y Vegetacional De Chile. Editorial Universitaria, Santiago de Chile.
Macdonald, D.W., Loveridge, A.J., Nowell, K., 2010. Dramatis personae: an introduction to the wild felids. In: Macdonald, D.W., Loveridge, A.J. (Eds.), Biology and Conservation of Wild Felids. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 3–58.
McGarigal, K., Cushman, S.A., Ene, E., 2012. FRAGSTATS v4: Spatial Pattern Analysis Program for Categorical and Continuous Maps. Computer software program produced by the authors at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. http://www.umass.edu/landeco/research/fragstats/fragstats.html. (Accessed 15 July 2015).
Napolitano, C., Johnson, W.E., Sanderson, J., O’Brien, S.J., Hoelzel, A.R., Freer, R., Dunstone, N., Ritland, K., Ritland, C.E., Poulinet, E., 2014. Phylogeography and population history of Leopardus guigna: the smallest American felid. Conserv. Genet. 15, 631–653.
Napolitano, C., Gálvez, N., Bennett, M., Acosta-Jamett, G., Sanderson, J., 2015. Leopardus guigna. In: IUCN 2014. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Version 2015.3. http://www.iucnredlist.org (Accessed 17 November 2015).
Nowell, K., Jackson, P., 1996. Wild Cats: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN.
Poessel, S.A., Burdett, C.L., Boydston, E.E., Lyren, L.M., Alonso, R.S., Fisher, R.N., Crooks, K.R., 2014. Roads influence movement and home ranges of a fragmentation sensitive carnivore the bobcat, in an urban landscape. Biol. Conserv. 180, 224–232.
Pulliam, H.R., 1988. Sources, sinks, and population regulation. Am. Nat. 132, 652–661.
Quintana, V., Yáñez, J., Valdebenito, M., Iriarte, A., 2009. Orden carnivora. In: Muñoz, A., Yáñez, J. (Eds.), Mamíferos De Chile. CEA Ediciones, Valdivia, pp. 193–320.
R Development Core Team, 2013. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria http://www.R-project.org/.
Riley, S.P.D., Sauvajot, R.M., Fuller, T.K., York, E.C., Kamradt, D.A., Bromley, C., Wayne, R.K., 2003. Effects of urbanization and habitat fragmentation on bobcats and coyotes in southern California. Conserv. Biol. 17, 566–576.
Rojas, I., Becerra, P., Gálvez, N., Laker, L., Bonacic, C., Hester, A., 2011. Relationship between fragmentation, degradation and native and exotic species richness in an Andean temperate forest of Chile. Gayana Bot. 68, 163–175.
Saavedra, B., Simonetti, J.A., 2005. Small mammals of Maulino forest remnants, a vanishing ecosystem of south-central Chile. Mammalia 69, 337–348.
Sanderson, J., Sunquist, M.E., Iriarte, A.W., 2002. Natural history and landscape-use of guignas (Oncifelis guigna) on Isla Grande de Chiloé, Chile. J. Mamm. 83, 608–613.
Šálek, M., Kreisinger, J., Sedláček, F., Albrecht, T., 2010. Do prey densities determine preferences of mammalian predators for habitat edges in an agricultural landscape? Landsc. Urban Plann. 98, 86–91.
Seaman, D.E., Millspaugh, J.J., Kernohan, B.J., Brundige, G.C., Raedeke, K.J., Gitzen, R.A., 1999. Effects of sample size on kernel home range estimates. J. Wildl. Manage. 63, 739–747.
Signer, J., Balkenhol, N., 2015. Reproducible home ranges (rhr): a new, user-friendly R package for analyses of wildlife telemetry data. Wildl. Soc. B 39, 358–363.
Silva-Rodríguez, E.A., Ortega-Solís, G.R., Jiménez, J.E., 2007. Human attitudes toward wild felids in a human-dominated landscape of Southern Chile. Cat News 46, 17–19.
Silverman, B.W., 1986. Density Estimation for Statistics and Data Analysis. Chapman & Hall, London.
Simonetti, J.A., Mella, J.E., 1997. Park size and the conservation of Chilean mammals. Rev. Chil. Hist. Nat. 70, 213–220.
Simonetti, J.A., Grez, A.A., Estades, C.F., 2013. Providing habitat for native mammals through understory enhancement in forestry plantations. Conserv. Biol. 27, 1117–1121.
Spencer, A.R., Cameron, G.N., Swihart, R.K., 1990. Operationally defining home range: temporal independence exhibited by hispid cotton rats. Ecology 71, 1817–1822.
Sunarto, S., Kelly, M.J., Parakkasi, K., Klenzendorf, S., Septayuda, E., Kurniawan, H., 2012. Tigers need cover: multi-scale occupancy study of the big cat in sumatran forest and plantation landscapes. PLoS One 7, e30859.
Sunde, P., Stener, S.O., Kvam, T., 1998. Tolerance to humans of resting lynxes Lynx lynx in a hunted population. Wildl. Biol. 4, 177–183.
Tognelli, M.F., de Arellano, P.I.R., Marquet, P.A., 2008. How well do the existing and proposed reserve networks represent vertebrate species in Chile? Divers. Distrib. 14, 148–158.
Wilson, K., Newton, A., Echeverría, C., Weston, C., Burgman, M., 2005. A vulnerability analysis of the temperate forests of south central Chile. Biol. Conserv. 122, 9–21.
Woodroffe, R., Ginsberg, J.R., 1998. Edge effects and the extinction of populations inside protected areas. Science 280, 2126–2128.
Zorondo-Rodríguez, F., Reyes-García, V., Simonetti, J.A., 2014. Conservation of biodiversity in private lands: are Chilean landowners willing to keep threatened species in their lands? Rev. Chil. Hist. Nat. 87, 4.
Zúñiga, A., Muñoz-Pedreros, A., Fierro, A., 2009. Habitat use of four terrestrial carnivores in southern Chile. Gayana 73, 200–210.
Zuur, A.F., Ieno, E.N., Walker, N.J., Saveliev, A.A., Smith, G.M., 2009. Mixed Effects Models and Extensions in Ecology with R. Springer, New York.
Zuur, A.F., Ieno, E.N., Elphick, C.S., 2010. A protocol of data exploration to avoid common statistical problems. Methods Ecol. Evol. 1, 3–14.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Schüttlera, E., Klenke, R., Galuppo, S. et al. Habitat use and sensitivity to fragmentation in America’s smallest wildcat. Mamm Biol 86, 1–8 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2016.11.013
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2016.11.013