Wildlife Monographs最新文献

{"title":"Issue Information - Cover","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/wmon.70012","DOIUrl":"10.1002/wmon.70012","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":235,"journal":{"name":"Wildlife Monographs","volume":"221 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wmon.70012","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146122821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Nutrition, predation, and parasitism as drivers of moose population dynamics in Montana\u0000 Nutrición, depredación, y parasitismo como factores determinantes de la dinámica poblacional del alce en Montana","authors":"Nicholas J. DeCesare, Collin J. Peterson, Jesse R. Newby","doi":"10.1002/wmon.70008","DOIUrl":"10.1002/wmon.70008","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Effective wildlife management relies upon understanding a hierarchy of demographic characteristics of wildlife populations, including population growth rate, age structure, component vital rates, and factors influencing those vital rates. Moose (<i>Alces alces</i>) occupy a circumboreal range spanning North America and Eurasia, across which their ecology and demography vary substantially. Given uncertainties regarding the status of moose in Montana, USA, and factors limiting their population growth, we studied moose population dynamics during 2013–2023 and focused on 3 study areas. We estimated population growth rates as a function of population age structure and several key vital rates, including adult female survival, adult female fecundity (the product of pregnancy and litter size rates), and calf survival. We also evaluated relationships amongst a suite of environmental conditions (weather metrics of temperature and snow conditions, seasonal forage quality, parasite effects including winter ticks (<i>Dermacentor albipictus</i>) and arterial worms (<i>Elaeophora schneideri</i>), and relative predator abundances) and vital rates, with the ultimate goals of determining the status of moose populations in Montana and the relative importance among factors affecting them. We studied adult female survival for 615 moose-years of monitoring across 186 individual moose, fecundity with pregnancy testing across 779 moose-years and litter size for 491 observed litters post-parturition, and calf survival using calf-at-heel monitoring of 619 pregnancies and 541 calves throughout their first year of life. We used previously reported results to monitor ambient temperature, snow, arterial worms, and winter ticks in these study areas and present new results concerning diet, forage quality, and relative predator abundance in these study areas. All vital rates (adult female survival, fecundity, and calf survival) showed significant effects of maternal age, which, in combination with differences in age distribution among study areas, had important effects on population growth rates. Adult female survival was 0.88–0.92 across study areas, and causes of mortality for adult females were predominantly health-related (annual cumulative incidence function [CIF] = 0.075) but also included effects of predation (CIF = 0.017) and humans (CIF = 0.014). Arterial worm infection intensities were associated with roughly 1–3% of annual mortality due to health-related causes. Health-related mortality was also higher for animals in poor nutritional condition, those who failed to recruit a calf the previous year, and in animal-years with more snow. Wolves (<i>Canis lupus</i>) were responsible for the highest proportion of predation-caused adult mortality, followed by grizzly bears (<i>Ursus arctos</i>) and mountain lions (<i>Puma concolor</i>). In addition, relative predator densities within seasonal spatial polygons were predictive of predation-caused mortality across individual ","PeriodicalId":235,"journal":{"name":"Wildlife Monographs","volume":"221 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146122834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Issue Information - Cover","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/wmon.70007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wmon.70007","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":235,"journal":{"name":"Wildlife Monographs","volume":"219 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wmon.70007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145284853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A quality standard for conservation of wild reindeer","authors":"Atle Mysterud,&nbsp;Torkild Tveraa,&nbsp;Brage Bremset Hansen,&nbsp;Vegard Gundersen,&nbsp;Hans Tømmervik,&nbsp;Rasmus Erlandsson,&nbsp;Knut H. Røed,&nbsp;Jørn Våge,&nbsp;Roy Andersen,&nbsp;Einy Brænd,&nbsp;Siri Wølneberg Bøthun,&nbsp;Morten Elgaaen,&nbsp;Øystein Holand,&nbsp;Morten Kjørstad,&nbsp;Kjersti Kvie,&nbsp;Anders Mossing,&nbsp;Ingrid Sønsterud Myren,&nbsp;Manuela Panzacchi,&nbsp;Bart Peeters,&nbsp;Tor Punsvik,&nbsp;Lena Romtveit,&nbsp;Anna Skarin,&nbsp;Bram Van Moorter,&nbsp;Vebjørn Veiberg,&nbsp;Vemund Jaren,&nbsp;Olav Strand,&nbsp;Christer M. Rolandsen","doi":"10.1002/wmon.70005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wmon.70005","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The ongoing biodiversity crisis requires policy tools to establish baselines and assess biodiversity status. Reindeer and caribou (<i>Rangifer tarandus</i>) are iconic ungulates in the Arctic and subarctic, but populations are declining. Although the species is considered vulnerable globally in the International Union for Conservation of Nature [IUCN] Red List, more detailed policy tools at the population level would allow for targeted conservation efforts nationally. We developed an environmental quality standard (or norm) for reindeer populations to evaluate their overall status and put complex variation and change into simple status categories (poor, medium, and good) based on sets of quantitative indicators for 1) population performance, genetic diversity, and health status; 2) available lichen resources; and 3) loss of seasonal habitat and connectivity. We implemented the environmental quality standard for 10 national and 14 smaller wild reindeer areas (populations) in Norway. Except for 1 area with good status, all others ranged from medium (<i>n</i> = 11) to poor quality (<i>n</i> = 12). More than half of the populations had medium (<i>n</i> = 7) or poor (<i>n</i> = 6) status for 1 or more population performance indicators, with negative trends in calf body mass and recruitment in several populations. High loss of genetic diversity gave poor status in 4 small and isolated populations, and 2 populations with chronic wasting disease scored poor on health status. The status of lichen resources was medium (<i>n</i> = 20) or good (<i>n</i> = 3), with 1 exception. However, lichen time series data were not available to evaluate temporal trends to assess overgrazing. Loss of connectivity (poor; <i>n</i> = 7) was more problematic than loss of seasonal habitat (<i>n</i> = 3). The poor availability of high-quality empirical data, particularly on population performance, has limited the ability to fully assess the conservation status of several small populations. The environmental quality standard provides an important step towards operationalizing management and aiding in securing the long-term conservation of wild reindeer. We discuss further improvements and the potential usefulness of this approach for other large mammals.</p>","PeriodicalId":235,"journal":{"name":"Wildlife Monographs","volume":"219 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145284533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Issue Information - Cover","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/wmon.70006","DOIUrl":"10.1002/wmon.70006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":235,"journal":{"name":"Wildlife Monographs","volume":"218 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wmon.70006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145101421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evaluating patterns of plant phenological progression and pronghorn movement behaviors across diverse landscapes\u0000 Évaluation des modèles de progression phénologique des plantes et des comportements de mouvement des antilopes d'Amérique dans divers paysages","authors":"Kelly M. Proffitt,&nbsp;J. Terrill Paterson,&nbsp;Jesse D. DeVoe,&nbsp;Christopher P. Hansen,&nbsp;Joshua J. Millspaugh","doi":"10.1002/wmon.70003","DOIUrl":"10.1002/wmon.70003","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;A variety of metrics based on the remotely sensed normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) are commonly used as proxies for nutritional conditions of landscapes for ungulates, and these proxies are used to explain variation in animals’ vital rates and movements. One common application of NDVI data is to derive the instantaneous rate of green-up (IRG) to represent the rate of plant phenological progression and evaluate hypotheses regarding animal movements related to the green wave. Although the green wave is generally assumed to occur along elevational gradients in mountain-valley systems, it is unknown how variable patterns of plant phenological progression occur across heterogeneous landscapes. Additionally, the consequences of spatial and temporal variability in these phenological patterns on animal movement behaviors in different ecological systems are unknown. Many ungulates worldwide exhibit migratory behaviors to track the leading edge of plant phenological progression; however, some species, such as pronghorn (&lt;i&gt;Antilocapra americana&lt;/i&gt;), that occupy mountain-valley and prairie systems may experience variable patterns of plant phenological progression and employ variable movement strategies to exploit these systems. Within 8 pronghorn herd ranges that span broad and heterogeneous landscapes in Montana, USA, our objectives were to 1) calculate and interpret phenology metrics, 2) evaluate spatial and temporal variability in plant phenology patterns, 3) characterize the patterns of plant phenological progression, 4) relate the variability and patterns of plant phenological progression to pronghorn migratory movement behaviors, and 5) evaluate potential nutritional trade-offs between employing a migratory or resident migratory behavior in different landscapes. The study area included the ranges of 3 pronghorn herds in western Montana characterized by an elevational gradient from lower elevation grasslands to higher elevation forests and the ranges of 5 pronghorn herds in eastern Montana characterized by mixed-grass prairie and sagebrush steppe. Across these 8 herds, we collected global positioning system (GPS) collar location data from 586 female pronghorn during 912 animal-years from 2019 to 2021. We processed 12 years of phenology data collected during 2010–2021. Spatial and temporal patterns and predictability of plant phenological progression varied across different pronghorn ranges. In general, the 3 western Montana herd ranges had less annual variation but greater intra-annual spatial variation in values of phenology metrics, as compared to the eastern Montana herd ranges, and greater predictability across years. The estimated green-up order, which represented the strength of the green wave, suggested that a defined and strong wavelike pattern of phenological progression (i.e., a green wave) was not common across pronghorn ranges in Montana. Most ranges in most years experienced a truncated green wave or synchronous greening a","PeriodicalId":235,"journal":{"name":"Wildlife Monographs","volume":"218 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wmon.70003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145101273","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Issue Information - Cover","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/wmon.70004","DOIUrl":"10.1002/wmon.70004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":235,"journal":{"name":"Wildlife Monographs","volume":"217 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wmon.70004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144206530","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"White-tailed deer habitat use and implications for chronic wasting disease transmission\u0000 Uso del hábitat del ciervo de cola blanca e implicaciones para la transmisión de la caquexia crónica","authors":"Marie L. J. Gilbertson,&nbsp;Alison C. Ketz,&nbsp;Matthew A. Hunsaker,&nbsp;Daniel P. Walsh,&nbsp;Daniel J. Storm,&nbsp;Wendy C. Turner","doi":"10.1002/wmon.70001","DOIUrl":"10.1002/wmon.70001","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Animal space use, activity patterns, and habitat selection—and heterogeneity in these patterns—have important implications for where and when infectious diseases are transmitted. White-tailed deer (<i>Odocoileus virginianus</i>) are habitat generalists, with a high degree of heterogeneity in their movement ecology based on sex, age, season, and region. These heterogeneities have important implications for the transmission and management of chronic wasting disease (CWD), which is a deadly prion disease transmitted both directly and indirectly through the environment. As such, favored deer habitats may promote direct interactions between conspecifics or indirect spatial overlap and subsequent environmental transmission. However, little is known about how individual animal space use translates to actual spatial overlap between individuals, leaving uncertainty in how habitat shapes the risk of direct or environmental CWD transmission. In this study, we evaluated seasonal activity patterns, home ranges, and habitat selection for 596 white-tailed deer in southwest Wisconsin, USA, from 2017-2022. We also estimated seasonal encounter distributions—regions where a pair of deer were most likely to encounter each other—for all pairs of deer putatively in different social groups (between-group) in our study, and quantified seasonal variation in the habitat composition of these areas. We found that deer selection for crops, pasture, or grasslands was generally low, relative to forest, but was highest in the post-fawning (summer) and non-breeding (winter) seasons. We observed similar patterns for the habitat composition of encounter distributions, suggesting that crops, pasture, and grasslands may be attractive resources that facilitate between-group transmission. Site fidelity between years was generally high; combined with small female home ranges in the fawning season, this implies that females likely re-use the same small, high-quality fawning habitats from year to year. We found that attraction toward between-group individuals was low during the post-fawning season but high during the breeding (fall) and non-breeding seasons. These results suggest that space use and habitat selection could shape the risk of environmental transmission in the fawning and post-fawning seasons, social selection could favor direct transmission risk in the breeding season, and combined social and habitat selection may shape risk of both direct and environmental transmission during the non-breeding season. We provide a detailed picture of the physiological and social drivers of deer movement through the year, with implications for CWD transmission and management.</p>","PeriodicalId":235,"journal":{"name":"Wildlife Monographs","volume":"217 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wmon.70001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144207079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Optimizing management of wildlife openings in forested landscapes for game birds and overall avian diversity\u0000 Optimizando la gestion de los claros forestales en paisajes de bosque para las aves de caza y la diversidad aviar general","authors":"Hannah L. Clipp,&nbsp;Christopher T. Rota,&nbsp;Catherine Johnson,&nbsp;Petra B. Wood","doi":"10.1002/wmon.70000","DOIUrl":"10.1002/wmon.70000","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;In forested landscapes of the Central Appalachians, wildlife openings are often created and maintained by land managers to provide early-successional habitat and food resources for game species, such as wild turkey (&lt;i&gt;Meleagris gallopavo&lt;/i&gt;), ruffed grouse (&lt;i&gt;Bonasa umbellus&lt;/i&gt;), and American woodcock (&lt;i&gt;Scolopax minor&lt;/i&gt;). Although management may focus on these regionally important game birds, wildlife openings can also benefit a myriad of avian species and guilds, depending on local habitat features and landscape-level factors. Yet little effort has been made to investigate how to optimally manage wildlife openings to attract a full spectrum of avifauna throughout spring and summer and to maximize richness across habitat guilds. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify the characteristics of wildlife openings that support target game birds and a diversity of breeding and post-breeding songbirds. Specifically, we investigated the effects of local habitat attributes, opening size, management decisions, and landscape context on multi-species occupancy of 3 game birds (wild turkey, ruffed grouse, and American woodcock) during the game bird courtship season and songbird guild richness during the breeding and post-breeding seasons. During April–August 2019–2021, we used species-specific and community-wide point count surveys, game cameras, acoustic recording units, and transect surveys to sample avian communities in 335 wildlife openings within the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia, USA. We incorporated multiple data sources for game bird occurrence into multi-species occupancy models, which were constructed within a Bayesian framework, and we used Bayesian hierarchical community models to calculate breeding and post-breeding songbird guild richness, followed by generalized linear mixed effects models to assess relationships with wildlife opening characteristics. Results from our game bird analyses indicated that wild turkey, ruffed grouse, and American woodcock occupancy probabilities were best explained by predictor variables relating primarily to management actions, such as mowing frequency, and secondarily to size and local habitat attributes of the wildlife openings, such as area, percent sapling cover, and elevation. Songbird guild richness also responded to area and elevation, with additional influence from predictor variables relating to landscape context. The songbird model results further indicated that it is feasible to manage wildlife openings for the mutual benefit of different species groups across seasons. Ultimately, these findings can be integrated into the design and management of wildlife openings to support target game bird populations and promote avian diversity in forest ecosystems.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;En los paisajes de bosque de los Apalaches Centrales, los administradores de tierras suelen crear y mantener los claros forestales para proveer hábitat de sucesíon temprana y recursos de comida para especies de c","PeriodicalId":235,"journal":{"name":"Wildlife Monographs","volume":"216 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144100704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Issue Information - Cover","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/wmon.70002","DOIUrl":"10.1002/wmon.70002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":235,"journal":{"name":"Wildlife Monographs","volume":"216 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wmon.70002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144100703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}