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Mountain Lion (Puma concolor) Habitat Selection After Large Wildfire in Southern California

Burkey, Stephanie Nicole
http://orcid.org/0009-0002-8951-9636
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1720813099300845

Abstract Details

2024, MS, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Geography.
In 2018, the largest wildfire to ever occur in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area burned 88% of National Park Service (NPS) land. Located near Los Angeles, this park is the largest urban national park in the U.S. and home to mountain lions (Puma concolor) that are severely threatened. High levels of urbanization force them to live in overlapping and too small of home ranges, leading to intraspecific conflicts and inbreeding. The frequent wildfires add another threat, killing pumas directly or damaging their habitat. Current research conflicts as to how pumas select habitat post-fire, and most do not incorporate remote sensing metrics or consider how movements change with time since fire. In this study, I used global positioning system (GPS) collar data supplied by the NPS to analyze post-fire puma habitat selection. I conducted integrated step selection functions (iSSFs) at individual and population levels, for every 6-month seasonal period following the 2018 fire through 2023. I analyzed nine static variables to account for abiotic landscape variability and three variables derived from multi-temporal remote sensing to capture the dynamic, biotic environment, mainly focused on burn severity and vegetation condition and structure metrics. Habitat selection and variable importance were compared within each time period, as well as throughout the study period. I focused results on the population level analyses only. Results indicated that pumas consistently selected for increased vegetation vigor and selected for higher landscape heterogeneity and structure for the majority of time periods. Vegetation vigor also appeared as one of the most important variables to movement, along with terrain ruggedness and slope. Seasonal trends emerged for some variables post-fire. This study suggests that pumas are considerate of vegetation condition and fire impacts when selecting habitat, highlighting key habitat characteristics that pumas prefer post-fire. The influence of climate change increasing wildfire activity could have detrimental impacts on puma habitat and gaining insight into how pumas behave in a post-fire environment will better equip us to conserve and manage populations.
David Kaplan (Advisor)
Tim Assal (Committee Member)
Emariana Widner (Committee Member)
Mark Kershner (Committee Member)
81 p.
Animals; Biology; Climate Change; Conservation; Ecology; Geographic Information Science; Geography; Remote Sensing; Wildlife Conservation; Wildlife Management
Puma concolor; mountain lion; cougar; habitat selection; wildfire; remote sensing; step-selection function

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Burkey, S. N. (2024). Mountain Lion (Puma concolor) Habitat Selection After Large Wildfire in Southern California [Master's thesis, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1720813099300845

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Burkey, Stephanie. Mountain Lion (Puma concolor) Habitat Selection After Large Wildfire in Southern California. 2024. Kent State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1720813099300845.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Burkey, Stephanie. "Mountain Lion (Puma concolor) Habitat Selection After Large Wildfire in Southern California." Master's thesis, Kent State University, 2024. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1720813099300845

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1720813099300845
194
© 2024, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Mountain Lion (Puma concolor) Habitat Selection After Large Wildfire in Southern California by Stephanie Nicole Burkey is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.