Caracal habitat selection and activity data
Description
Data used for manuscript entitled: "Anthropogenic activities and age class mediate carnivore habitat selection in a human-dominated landscape." Data comprise 3-hour and 20-min data (separate files) used for step selection functions. One-hour subsampled data were used for an activity analysis. Species: Caracal caracal Paper highlights: • Urban and wildland caracals show different patterns of habitat selection • Subadult caracals utilize the urban matrix and marginal habitat more than adults • Urban caracals do not become more nocturnal to avoid human activity • Urban caracals select to be close to urban areas at night; wildland caracals do not • Urban caracals use microhabitat refugia to mitigate risk of human detection Paper summary: Human activities increasingly challenge wildlife populations by disrupting ecological connectivity and population persistence. Yet, human-modified habitats can provide resources, resulting in selection of disturbed areas by generalist species. To investigate spatial and temporal responses of a generalist carnivore to human disturbance, we investigated habitat selection and diel activity patterns in caracals (Caracal caracal). We GPS-collared 25 adults and subadults in urban and wildland-dominated subregions in Cape Town, South Africa. Selection responses for landscape variables were dependent on subregion, animal age class, and diel period. Contrary to expectations, caracals did not become more nocturnal in urban areas. Caracals increased their selection for proximity to urban areas as the proportion of urban area increased. Differences in habitat selection between urban and wildland caracals suggest that individuals of this generalist species have intraspecific variation in response to anthropogenic disturbances that emerge as a function of habitat context.
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Steps to reproduce
All methods are presented in the STAR Methods for the publication. GPS-locations obtained by GPS-collaring 25 unique caracal individuals, coded as Use=1. ‘Available’ locations (Use = 0) were created using random vectors originating from the location immediately preceding ‘used’ location t (i.e., location t-1). Random vectors were drawn based on the empirical distribution of turn angles and step lengths between consecutive locations derived from data on all individuals that were the same sex and age group as the focal individual but excluding the focal individual to avoid circularity Landscape covariate information extracted for each location using GIS layers described in study supplemental tables. Covariates were scaled to have a mean = 0 and a standard deviation = 2. Activity data are coded as 1=active, 0=inactive.