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Strong influence of local habitat structure on mammals reveals mismatch with edge effects models

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Abstract

Context

What determines mammal occurrence across wildland-urban edges? A better understanding of the variables involved will help update edge effects theory and improve our ability to conserve biota in urbanizing landscapes.

Objectives

For the first time, we tested whether the occurrence of mammals across urban-forest edges and forest interiors was best predicted by: (1) edge variables (i.e. edge type and distance to an urban boundary), (2) local habitat structure (e.g. proportion of understory cover), or (3) edge variables after accounting for local habitat structure.

Methods

Using 77 camera stations in South-Eastern Australia, we quantified the factors influencing the occurrence of five native mammals (brown antechinus, bush rat, common brushtail possum, black wallaby and long-nosed bandicoot) and three non-native mammals (red fox, cat, and dog).

Results

The occurrence of most native and non-native mammals was best predicted by local habitat structure rather than by edge variables. Although edge variables had effects on most species occurrences, local habitat structure outweighed the impacts of edge effects.

Conclusions

Our findings are important for management and urban planning as they suggest that local-scale management of habitat and habitat retention at urban edges will mitigate urban impacts on fauna. Our work reveals a critical mismatch in the spatial scale of predictive variables commonly used in edge effects models (edge types and distance to a boundary) compared with the smaller scale of local habitat variables, which underlie most species occurrence. We emphasize the need to consider heterogeneity within patches in predictive frameworks of edge effects.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Martin Escobar and Kevin Mayes for their invaluable help during fieldwork; Christopher MacGregor for helping us to cross-check species identification; Nicholas Dexter and Martin Fortescue from Booderee National Park, Libby Shields and Alex Deura from NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Kevin Petty from Forestry Corporation of NSW, and the community of Shoalhaven for their support during this project. Jeff Wood commented on our experimental design. Cristián Estades, Julie Watson, Clive McAlpine and two anonymous reviewers made relevant comments on a previous version of this manuscript. NRV was supported by BECAS CHILE-CONICYT granted by the Government of Chile during her PhD studies. This research was supported, in part, by funding from the Environmental Decisions Hub of the Australian Government’s National Environmental Research Program. The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage provided cartography layers. This study was conducted under Animal Ethics Approval A2012/52; NSW Scientific License SL101012; Permit for an Activity in a Commonwealth Reserve BDR12/00010; and Special Purpose Permit for Research in NSW State Forests granted to NRV.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, NERP Environmental Decisions Hub, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    Nélida R. Villaseñor, Wade Blanchard, Don A. Driscoll, Philip Gibbons & David B. Lindenmayer

  2. Long-term Ecological Research Network, Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Network, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    David B. Lindenmayer

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  1. Nélida R. Villaseñor
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  2. Wade Blanchard
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  3. Don A. Driscoll
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  4. Philip Gibbons
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  5. David B. Lindenmayer
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Correspondence to Nélida R. Villaseñor.

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Villaseñor, N.R., Blanchard, W., Driscoll, D.A. et al. Strong influence of local habitat structure on mammals reveals mismatch with edge effects models. Landscape Ecol 30, 229–245 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-014-0117-9

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