Spatiotemporal dynamics of resource availability can produce markedly different patterns of landscape utilization which necessitates studying habitat selection across biologically relevant extents. Feral pigs (Sus scrofa) are a prolifically expanding, generalist species and researchers have yet to understand fundamental drivers of space use in agricultural landscapes within the United States. To study multi-scale habitat selection patterns, I deployed 13 GPS collars on feral pigs within the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. I estimated resource selection using mixed-effects models to determine how feral pigs responded to changes in forage availability and incorporated those results with autocorrelated kernel density home range estimates. My results indicated season-specific habitat functional responses to changes in agricultural phenology and illustrated the interdependencies of landscape composition, hierarchical habitat selection, and habitat functional responses. These results indicate fundamental drivers of feral pig spatial distributions in an agricultural landscape which I used to predict habitat use to direct feral pig management.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MSSTATE/oai:scholarsjunction.msstate.edu:td-5019 |
| Date | 04 May 2018 |
| Creators | Paolini, Kelsey Elizabeth |
| Publisher | Scholars Junction |
| Source Sets | Mississippi State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
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