Landscape modification and species traits shape seasonal wildlife community dynamics within an arid metropolitan region

Abstract

Understanding the spatial factors that shape wildlife communities across human-modified landscapes is vital for biodiversity conservation. Although human activities can decrease biodiversity, humans can also provide resources, which can potentially increase species richness. However, it is largely unknown how seasonal community characteristics vary in relation to the characteristics of both the landscape and species. For this study, we evaluated how landscape characteristics and species traits influenced habitat use (i.e., patch occupancy, persistence, and colonization) and species richness across seasons and a gradient of urbanization, hypothesizing that habitat use and richness would increase with patch diversity and seasonally dynamic vegetation productivity but decrease with urbanization. We further predicted that use and richness would vary seasonally and increase in areas of urbanization during the summer season. Across the Phoenix Metropolitan Area, Arizona, we used 50 wildlife cameras to evaluate the wildlife community for one year (2019–2020). We estimated seasonal habitat use and richness of this wildlife community across the spring, summer, and winter seasons using multi-scale community occupancy models. As predicted, seasonal use and richness consistently demonstrated negative relationships with urbanization. Contrary to predictions, use and richness did not increase in urbanized areas during the summer season. However, habitat use further varied according to species traits, with larger-bodied species exhibiting higher site use in less urbanized landscapes. Overall, similarities in species richness across seasons and low colonization rates suggest that habitat quality and/or spatial barriers may restrict the ability of wildlife to use fragmented and urbanized landscapes. Limiting urbanization within currently wildland areas and enhancing spatial connectivity could improve the ability of wildlife communities to utilize temporally dynamic resources and persist across anthropogenic landscapes.