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Sex-biased habitat selection by American marten in the Acadian Forest

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Abstract

Context

For wildlife dependent on mature forest living in managed landscapes, habitat loss from land use can outpace habitat recovery from forest regrowth, challenging persistence of habitat specialists. For some species, the effects of habitat loss or fragmentation may also differ between sexes when physiological or behavioral differences influence space use.

Objectives

We evaluated differences in landscape-scale occurrence, as a function of habitat amount and configuration, between male and female American martens in the heterogeneous, commercial forestlands of northern Maine, USA.

Methods

Using location data from a long-term (1994–1997) radio-telemetry study, we modeled boundaries of home ranges occupied by resident adults (> 1 year) and simulated potential home ranges in unoccupied areas. Landscape metrics of habitat amount and configuration within home ranges, calculated from time-specific maps of suitable habitat derived from Landsat satellite imagery, were used to develop binary logistic regression models that were compared within an information theoretic framework. We extrapolated and tested top performing models in two novel landscapes.

Results

Habitat amount was most important when predicting female occurrence. For males, which maintained larger home ranges, occurrence was influenced by habitat amount and patchiness (density and shape). Top sex-specific models reliably predicted marten occurrence (1991–1996) in an adjacent forest preserve, but overestimated occurrence, particularly for females, in a more distant (~ 70 km Northeast) commercial forest in 2007.

Conclusions

Marten in our study exhibited nonlinear declines in occurrence as suitable habitat declined. Maintaining sufficient habitat to support adult females in particular will be important to the future conservation of this late breeding, area sensitive, habitat specialized species.

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Data availability

Data are available via the Dryad Digital Repository (https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.sn02v6x5g) (Simons-Legaard et al. 2022).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the 30+ individuals who contributed to field data collection over the years, and to D. Katnik, T. Hodgman, D. Phillips, T. Chapin, and A. Fuller whose field and analytical contributions were substantial. The Baxter State Park Authority provided logistical support. Great Northern Paper Corp., Champion Paper Corp., and Katahdin Forest Management LLC provided access to their working forestlands, logistical support, and openly shared landcover data. KFM staff members D.E. Boss, L. Feero, A. Filauro, and M. McKeague were particularly helpful, as were B. Wigley of NCASI, N. Sferra of TNC, and K. Elowe of MDIFW.

Funding

This project was supported by Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Project W-82-R-II-368, the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, the University of Maine Department of Wildlife Ecology, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW), the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station, the Maine Cooperative Forestry Research Unit, the U.S. Forest Service’s Agenda 20/20 Program, the Maine Outdoor Heritage Trust, U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service’s Healthy Forest Reserve Program, the Maine Forest Service, and The Nature Conservancy (TNC). This project was also supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, McIntire-Stennis Project Number ME0-41608 through the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Forest Resources, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA

    Erin Simons-Legaard

  2. Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA

    Erin Simons-Legaard & Daniel Harrison

  3. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Jeffrey Hepinstall-Cymerman

  4. Natural Resource Sciences Team, National Park Service – Alaska Region, Anchorage, AK, USA

    David Payer

Authors
  1. Erin Simons-Legaard
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  2. Daniel Harrison
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  4. David Payer
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the conceptual development; DH secured project funding and oversaw project management; DH and DP collected the data; JH-C; ES-L analyzed the data; ES-L led the writing of the manuscript, with contributions from JH-C and DH, with input and final approval from all authors.

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Correspondence to Erin Simons-Legaard.

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Simons-Legaard, E., Harrison, D., Hepinstall-Cymerman, J. et al. Sex-biased habitat selection by American marten in the Acadian Forest. Landsc Ecol 37, 2803–2817 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-022-01508-7

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