Pond, Bruce A

Site fidelity is the behaviour of individuals to return to the same location; for female woodland caribou it may reflect reproductive success and depend on habitat quality. I investigated the influence of landscape and disturbance conditions on fidelity among three populations in Manitoba and Ontario, Canada. Habitat classifications were based on Forest Resource Inventory (FRI) and Landsat TM landcover maps. A total of 261 sites were ground-truthed to determine mapping accuracy. An amalgamated map incorporating FRI and Landsat TM data was estimated from field measurements to have an overall accuracy of 69.0%. Site fidelity was expressed as the distance between consecutive-year locations of individuals and was investigated during five week-long periods representing calving, early and late post-calving, winter, and breeding. Site fidelity was strongest during the post-calving seasons and weakest during the winter. Habitat had little influence on site fidelity in all seasons, excepting winter, even under highly disturbed conditions, suggesting maintenance of fidelity may be a maladaptive trait. Individual variation proved a strong predictor and cursory mapping indicated that caribou may return to sites visited two or more years earlier. Conservation management and policy should recognize that site fidelity may represent an ecological trap.

Author Keywords: calving, disturbance, habitat, movement, Rangifer tarandus caribou, site fidelity

The primary method used to maintain white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) populations at densities that are ecologically, economically, socially, and culturally sustainable is hunter harvest. This method considers only the removal of animals from the population (the direct effect) and does not conventionally consider the costs imposed on deer as they adopt hunter avoidance strategies (the risk effect). The impact of risk effects on prey can exceed that of direct effects and there is interest in applying this concept to wildlife management. Deer are potential candidates as they have demonstrated behavioural responses to hunters. I explored the potential of such a management practice by quantifying how human decisions around hunting create a landscape of fear for deer and how deer alter their space use and behaviour in response. I used a social survey to explore the attitudes of rural landowners in southern and eastern Ontario towards deer and deer hunting to understand why landowners limited hunting on their property. I used GPS tracking devices to quantify habitat selection by hunters and hunting dogs (Canis familiaris) to better understand the distribution of hunting effort across the landscape. I used GPS collars to quantify the habitat selection of deer as they responded to this hunting pressure. I used trail cameras to quantify a fine-scale behavioural response, vigilance, by deer in areas with and without hunting. Human actions created a highly heterogeneous landscape of fear for deer. Landowner decisions excluded hunters from over half of the rural and exurban landscape in southern and eastern Ontario, a pattern predicted by landowner hunting participation and not landcover composition. Hunter decisions on whether to hunt with or without dogs resulted in dramatically different distributions of hunting effort across the landscape. Deer showed a high degree of behavioural plasticity and, rather than adopting uniform hunter avoidance strategies, tailored their response to the local conditions. The incorporation of risk effects into white-tailed deer management is feasible and could be done by capitalizing on a better understanding of deer behaviour to improve current management practices or by designing targeted hunting practices to elicit a landscape of fear with specific management objectives.

Author Keywords: Brownian bridge movement models, hunting, landscape of fear, resource utilization functions, risk effects, white-tailed deer

I investigated if spatio-temporal behaviour of grey wolves (Canis lupus) determined via GPS collar locations could be used to discriminate predation events generally, and among prey species, in Prince Albert National Park during winter, 2013-2017. I used characteristics of spatio-temporal GPS clusters to develop a predictive mixed-effect logistic regression model of which spatial clusters of locations were wolf kill sites. The model suffered a 60 % omission error when tested with reserved data due to the prevalence of deer kills with correspondingly low handling time. Next, I found a multivariate difference in the percentage of habitat classes used by wolves in the 2 hours preceding predation events of different prey species, suggesting that wolf habitat use reflects prey selection at a fine-scale. My results highlight the difficulty and future potential for remoting discriminating wolf predation events via GPS collar locations in multi-prey ecosystems.

Author Keywords: Canis lupus, GPS clusters, GPS collars, grey wolf, habitat use, predation

Livestock predation by wild predators is a frequent and complicated issue, often cited as a significant factor in the decline of livestock production and justification for killing predators. Coyotes (Canis latrans) are the primary predators of sheep in Ontario. Some farms appear to be more susceptible to predation than others, despite the use of mitigation techniques. I explored land cover in the vicinity of farms as a potential influence on the level of predation, as coyote abundance and wild prey are correlated with certain habitat types. Using model competition, I show that landscape explains little variation in predation levels over all farms, but can explain 27% of variation in the percent of a flock killed. Total forest edge habitat and distance between forest patches were both positively associated with losses, suggesting a reduction in forest cover surrounding a farm puts the flock at greater risk. In addition, I tested four disruptive deterrents for effectiveness at protecting flocks. A matched-pairs analysis did not show a statistically significant benefit of these non-lethal mitigation tools.

Author Keywords: Alternative Prey, Canis latrans, Coyote, Landscape, Predation Deterrents, Sheep

Changes to the Arctic and sub-Arctic climate are becoming increasingly evident as it warms faster than other areas of the globe, supporting evidence that predictions of future warming will be amplified due to positive feedback mechanisms. The Southern Hudson Bay polar bear (Ursus maritimus) subpopulation is one of the most southerly subpopulations in the world, putting it at increased risk due to effects of climate change. Whereas many other subpopulations have been the subject of intense research and monitoring, little research has been completed detailing the movement behaviour and space use of bears within Southern Hudson Bay. I used detailed movement data collected on female polar bears to establish a baseline of movement information for this subpopulation to which future work can be compared and effects of climate change can be assessed I evaluated the use of core areas during critical periods of the year (breeding and ice breakup) and evaluated common space use as a means of assessing site fidelity during the breeding season. Movement rates and home range sizes were comparable to those of the neighbouring Western Hudson Bay subpopulation. I also found evidence of increased occurrences of long distance, late fall movements along the coast to the northwest, presumably to gain earlier access to first ice. Though space use analysis did not reveal evidence of site fidelity to specific breeding areas in Hudson Bay, I found that core use areas are at risk of substantially shortened ice duration (x¯ =76 days shorter) using projected ice data based on the high emissions A2 climate change scenario.

Author Keywords: climate change, Hudson Bay, movement, polar bear, sea ice, utilization distribution

The purpose of this thesis is to quantify the habitat characteristics, density patterns and environmental niches of two groups of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins: Chinese white dolphins (CWD) of the Pearl River estuary (PRE), and Taiwanese white dolphins (TWD, =Taiwanese humpback dolphin, THD) found in the eastern Taiwan Strait (ETS). Much work has already been done on the habitat use of CWDs in parts of the PRE, so the purpose of my first two chapters was to advance knowledge of the TWD to a comparable level. Chapter 2 contains the first published description of the relatively shallow, inshore, estuarine habitat of the TWD. General environmental characteristics and observed group sizes were consistent with other populations of humpback dolphins, and group sizes were not correlated with the environmental variables measured during surveys. Chapter 3 investigated density patterns of TWDs, finding spatiotemporal heterogeneity across the study area. Humpback dolphin densities fluctuated from year to year, but some parts of the study area were consistently used more than others. Environmental characteristics again did not influence dolphin densities, though more dolphins than expected were sighted in waters adjacent to major land reclamations, which may be related to the location of these areas close to major rivers. In Chapter 4, niches of the TWD and CWDs found in the PRE were compared using species distribution models, which indicated significant niche overlap. This may be due to niche conservatism maintaining similar fundamental niches between the two groups since their historical split >10,000 years ago, or a result of the intrinsic biotic factors that influence occurrence data affecting the hypervolume dimensions of each realized niche in similar ways. Geographic predictions indicate that most of the TWD's range has likely been surveyed, and that there may be connectivity between PRE humpback dolphins and at least one neighbouring putative population due to continuous predicted suitable habitat in waters that remain poorly surveyed. Overall, my thesis demonstrates that density patterns may vary over time, but on a broad temporal scale, these two allopatric groups of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins have similar habitat requirements in geographically isolated, but environmentally similar locations.

Author Keywords: density, habitat, Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, niche overlap, Sousa chinensis, species distribution model