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opencc-zeroMay 2022View details →

Karuk ecological fire management practices promote elk habitat in Northern California

After a century of fire suppression and accumulating fuel loads in North American forests, prescribed burns are increasingly used to prevent conditions leading to catastrophic megafire. There is widespread evidence that prescribed fire was used by Indigenous communities to manage natural and cultural resources tribes for thousands of years. Wildlife habitat is an example of an ecological response that was actively managed with prescribed burns by Indigenous American peoples and is an important factor in western U.S. forest management planning, restoration and climate resilience efforts. We analyzed the effects of modern prescribed burns informed by traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) on the predicted change in elk winter habitat in Karuk aboriginal territory in Northern California between 2013 and 2018 using species distribution and simultaneous autoregressive modeling techniques. Burn types most closely resembling Karuk traditional practices, specifically those incorporating multiple-year broadcast burns, had significant positive effects on elk winter habitat suitability. Conversely, concentrated burns focused solely on reducing fuel loads had significant negative effects on elk winter habitat suitability. However, areas where these fuel-reduction burns were combined with multiple years of broadcast burns featured the highest increases in habitat. Our results suggest that transitioning to prescribed burns that more closely follow Karuk TEK will promote elk habitat in the region. This would be best achieved through continuing to work closely with Indigenous representatives to plan and implement cultural fire prescriptions on a landscape-scale, a trend we posit would benefit environmental management efforts across the globe.

opencc-by-4.0Jul 2022View details →

Evaluating the summer landscapes of predation risk and forage quality for elk (Cervus canadensis)

These data accompany the paper "Evaluating the summer landscapes of predation risk and forage quality for elk (Cervus canadensis)", and are the unscaled version of the second- and third-order resource selection data sets for elk.  Each data set consists of 6 columns: elkid (a unique identifier for every individual), used (an indicator: 0 = available sample, 1 = used sample), year, de (modeled digestible energy), lion (predicted relative probability of selection for mountain lions) and wolf (predicted relative probability of selection for wolves).

opencc-zeroOct 2022View details →

Data and R computer code from: Summer elk calf survival in a partially migratory population

These data and computer code (written in R, https://www.r-project.org) were created to statistically evaluate a suite of intrinsic and extrinsic risk factors related to calf elk and their mothers' body condition and age. Specifically, known-fate data were collected from 94 elk calves monitored from 2013-2016 in a partially migratory elk (Cervus canadensis) population in Alberta, Canada. Along with adult female data on pregnancy status, age, and body condition, we created a time-to-event dataset that allowed us to analyze calf mortality risk in a time-to-event approach. We also estimated pooled survivorship and cause-specific mortality, as well as stratifying these metrics by migration tactic (resident vs. eastern migrant). Cox proportional hazards models were used to evaluate calf mortality risk in terms of forage biomass (kg/ha), bear predation risk (from an RSF), and other factors that varied between migration tactics. We tested for differences in a number of maternal reproductive parameters (e.g., pregnancy status) and for calf explanatory variables between migrant and resident elk segments. We also use cumulative incidence functions to estimate cause-specific mortality in this multiple carnivore system. Ultimately, we hope that this work helps wildlife managers anticipate how elk calf survival and partial migration dynamics are affected by grizzly bear predation, and our study builds on a long-term partial migration study at the Ya Ha Tinda Ranch in Alberta, Canada.

Fig. 1 in Fluke abundance versus host age for an invasive trematode (Dicrocoelium dendriticum) of sympatric elk and beef cattle in southeastern Alberta, Canada

Fig. 1. Age–abundance profiles for the trematode, D. dendriticum in a population of elk sampled from 2009 to 2011 from Cypress Hills Park, Alberta. The solid line represents the negative binomial distribution model fit using maximum likelihood; the dashed lines represent the 95% confidence intervals.

Fig. 2 in Fluke abundance versus host age for an invasive trematode (Dicrocoelium dendriticum) of sympatric elk and beef cattle in southeastern Alberta, Canada

Fig. 2. Stacked frequency distribution of adult D. dendriticum in calf, juvenile, and adult elk collected between 1997 and 2011 from Cypress Hills Park, Alberta.

Fig. 4. Relationship between liver weight and host age for elk sampled from 2009 in Fluke abundance versus host age for an invasive trematode (Dicrocoelium dendriticum) of sympatric elk and beef cattle in southeastern Alberta, Canada

Fig. 4. Relationship between liver weight and host age for elk sampled from 2009 to 2011 from Cypress Hills Park, Alberta. Regression lines are maximum likelihood estimates.

Fig. 3 in Fluke abundance versus host age for an invasive trematode (Dicrocoelium dendriticum) of sympatric elk and beef cattle in southeastern Alberta, Canada

Fig. 3. Age–abundance profile of infection for the invasive trematode, D. dendriticum in beef cattle sampled from 2003 to 2013 from Cypress Hills Park, Alberta. The solid line represents the negative binomial distribution model fit using maximum likelihood; the dashed lines represent the 95% confidence interval.

opencc-zeroJul 2023View details →

Northern Yellowstone Elk survival and competing risks

Prey vulnerability to predation can vary by life history stage, and prey population stage structure determines the strength a predator species wields on their community. Prey population stage structure can vary over time, yet little is known about how temporal change in prey stage structure influences predator-prey interactions. We used data of wolves hunting adult female elk in Yellowstone National Park to demonstrate that stage-selective wolf predation of old individuals (>11 years old) was more additive than wolf predation of young individuals (2–11 years old). Additive predation of older elk coupled with an aging female elk population increased the strength of wolf predation over time. When vulnerable prey comprise an increasing proportion of a population, their early demise may decrease population growth. Accounting for temporal variation in predation risk across a prey population is therefore critical to understanding the community-level consequences of predator-prey interactions.