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A Preliminary Range-Wide Distribution Model for the Sacramento Valley Red Fox
A Preliminary Range-Wide Distribution Model for the Sacramento Valley Red Fox
- Source :
- Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management. 8:28-38
- Publication Year :
- 2016
- Publisher :
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2016.
-
Abstract
- The Sacramento Valley red fox Vulpes vulpes patwin of California is a newly named subspecies recently found to be distinct both from other native red foxes and nearby introduced populations. The Sacramento Valley red fox experienced a historical demographic bottleneck resulting in a critically small genetic effective population size, causing concern over its current status and management requirements, yet little is known about its contemporary abundance, demographic trajectory, or habitat use. The hot, arid Sacramento Valley contrasts starkly in climate and physiography with the boreal habitats of other indigenous red foxes in western North America, indicating the need to obtain information specifically on the habitat requirements of this subspecies. A 3-y effort to locate reproductive den sites throughout the Sacramento Valley resulted in 42 independent dens, which we used to obtain preliminary information on habitat use and to develop a distribution model for this subspecies, and 28 Sacramento Valley red foxes killed by vehicles, which we used as independent data to test the models. Foxes were present significantly more than expected in grasslands and less than expected in wetlands and flooded agriculture and also tended to occur in proximity to human development, potentially as refuges from coyotes Canis latrans. We used Maxent to build predictive models. The best model, which incorporated vegetation/land-use classes and proximity to human development, identified 24% of the study area as predicted-presence habitat, which contained 76% of the den sites used to construct the model and 89% of independent locations used to test the model. Our model greatly narrowed the area over which foxes are predicted to occur and will facilitate future surveys to assess occupancy and ultimately abundance and population trends.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Ecology
biology
Range (biology)
Vulpes
Subspecies
biology.organism_classification
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Arid
010601 ecology
Geography
Habitat
Effective population size
Boreal
Abundance (ecology)
Animal Science and Zoology
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Nature and Landscape Conservation
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 1944687X
- Volume :
- 8
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........525b5b46a42c10a4de4f09be882823af
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.3996/072016-jfwm-057