Mammal Responses to Human Disturbance by Suraci et al. 2021

Mammal Responses to Human Disturbance by Suraci et al. 2021

Suraci et al. (2021) explore how various mammal species respond to human disturbances, focusing on the impacts of human presence and landscape modification across North America. The study analyzes data from 24 mammal species, revealing that ecological and life history traits significantly predict species responses to anthropogenic influences. Key findings indicate that larger, carnivorous species are more negatively affected by human footprint, while smaller mammals may benefit from increased resource availability in modified landscapes. This research is crucial for conservation strategies aimed at maintaining biodiversity in human-dominated environments.

Key Points

  • Analyzes 24 mammal species across North America regarding human disturbance effects
  • Identifies ecological traits that predict species responses to human presence
  • Demonstrates that larger carnivores are more affected by human footprint
  • Highlights the benefits of human presence for smaller, adaptable species
  • newtopiccyclegrowin
263
/ 14
3718 
|
  wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/gcb Glob Change Biol. 2021;27:3718–3731.© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Received: 25 February 2021 
|
 Accepted: 25 March 2021
DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15650
PRIMARY RESEARCH ARTICLE
Disturbance type and species life history predict mammal
responses to humans
Justin P. Suraci
1
 | Kaitlyn M. Gaynor
2
 | Maximilian L. Allen
3,4
 | Peter Alexander
5
 |
Justin S. Brashares
6
 | Sara Cendejas- Zarelli
7
 | Kevin Crooks
8
 | L. Mark Elbroch
9
 |
Tavis Forrester
10
 | Austin M. Green
11
 | Jeffrey Haight
12
 | Nyeema C. Harris
13
 |
Mark Hebblewhite
14
 | Forest Isbell
15
 | Barbara Johnston
16
 | Roland Kays
17,18
 | Patrick
E. Lendrum
19
 | Jesse S. Lewis
20
 | Alex McInturff
21
 | William McShea
22
 | Thomas
W. Murphy
23
 | Meredith S. Palmer
24
 | Arielle Parsons
18
 | Mitchell A. Parsons
25
 | Mary
E. Pendergast
26
 | Charles Pekins
27
 | Laura R. Prugh
28
 | Kimberly A. Sager- Fradkin
7
 |
Stephanie Schuttler
17
 | Çağan H. Şekercioğlu
11,29
 | Brenda Shepherd
30
 |
Laura Whipple
4
 | Jesse Whittington
16
 | George Wittemyer
8
 | Christopher C. Wilmers
1
1
Center for Integrated Spatial Research, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
2
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
3
Illinois Natural History Survey, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, USA
4
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA
5
Craighead Beringia South, Kelly, WY, USA
6
Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
7
Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, Port Angeles, WA, USA
8
Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
9
Panthera, New York, NY, USA
10
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, La Grande, OR, USA
11
School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
12
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
13
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
14
Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Science, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA
15
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
16
Parks Canada Agency, Banff, AB, Canada
17
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, NC, USA
18
Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
19
World Wildlife Fund, Northern Great Plains Program, Bozeman, MT, USA
20
College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, Arizona State University, Mesa, AZ, USA
21
University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
22
Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, USA
23
Edmonds College, Lynnwood, WA, USA
24
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
25
Wildland Resources Department, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA
26
Wild Utah Project, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
27
Fort Hood Natural Resources Management Branch, United States Army Garrison, Fort Hood, TX, USA
28
School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
29
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey
30
Parks Canada Agency, Jasper, AB, Canada
   
|
  3719
SUR ACI et Al.
1 |  INTRODUCTION
As the spatial extent and intensity of human activity expands
worldwide (Larson et al., 2016; Venter et al., 2016), it is increas-
ingly critical to understand how animal communities respond to
anthropogenic disturbance (Gallo et al., 2017; Magle et al., 2016;
Parsons et al., 2018). Disturbance effects on animal distribution
and activity are typically assumed to be negative (Belote et al.,
2020; Dirzo et al., 2014), yet for some species, human activities
confer benefits as well as costs. These trade- offs are particularly
common for mammals, as greater resource availability and re-
duced competition or predation in human- dominated landscapes
(Bateman & Fleming, 2012; Moll et al., 2018) may offset the im-
pacts of habitat loss and exposure to anthropogenic mortality (Hill
et al., 2020; Sévêque et al., 2020). At the community level, the
differential responses of species to human disturbance may have
a filtering effect (Aronson et al., 2016; Santini et al., 2019), such
that only species with “winning” combinations of ecological and
life history traits (i.e., those suited to coexistence with humans)
will persist in disturbed environments (Pineda- Munoz et al., 2021).
Human disturbance may, therefore, reshape mammal commu-
nities in ways that are predictable from suites of species traits,
with implications for both single- species conservation efforts and
broader patterns of ecosystem functioning (Estes et al., 2011;
Schmitz et al., 2018).
Anthropogenic activity involves multiple distinct stressors,
which may interact with species traits to determine the net effect
of human influence on mammal behavior and habitat use. Recent
work (Doherty et al., 2021; Nickel et al., 2020) demonstrates that
two broad types of human disturbance— direct human presence
Correspondence and present address
Justin P. Suraci, Conservation Science
Partners, Inc., 11050 Pioneer Trail, Suite
202, Truckee, CA 96161, USA.
Email: justin.suraci@gmail.com
Funding information
NSF LTREB, Grant/Award Number:
1556248; Alberta Conservation
Association; Rocky Mountain Elk
Foundation; Safari Club International
Foundation; Natural Sciences and
Engineering Research Council of
Canada; Alberta Environment and
Parks; NSF, Grant/Award Number:
DEB- 1652420, DEB- 1832016, EF-
0723676, EF- 1413925, PRFB #1810586,
1232442 and 1319293; NOAA, Grant/
Award Number: NA10NOS4290149;
Climate Program Office, Grant/Award
Number: NA09SEC4690036; Minnesota
Environment and Natural Resources
Trust Fund; Summerlee Foundation;
Paisley Foundation; VWR Foundation;
USDA National Wildlife Research
Center; Administration for Native
Americans (Department of Health and
Human Services)- ANA Environmental
Regulatory Grant, Grant/Award Number:
90NR0302; Schmidt Science Fellows;
American Alliance of Museums; California
Department of Fish and Wildlife, Grant/
Award Number: P1680002; Parks Canada;
US Department of State; Global Change
and Sustainability Center; Terracon
Foundation; ACES Undergraduate
Research Scholarship Program; National
Geographic Society; The Wildlife Society;
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
McIntire- Stennis Capacity Grant; Panthera
Abstract
Human activity and land use change impact every landscape on Earth, driving de-
clines in many animal species while benefiting others. Species ecological and life his-
tory traits may predict success in human- dominated landscapes such that only species
with “winning” combinations of traits will persist in disturbed environments. However,
this link between species traits and successful coexistence with humans remains ob-
scured by the complexity of anthropogenic disturbances and variability among study
systems. We compiled detection data for 24 mammal species from 61 populations
across North America to quantify the effects of (1) the direct presence of people and
(2) the human footprint (landscape modification) on mammal occurrence and activ-
ity levels. Thirty- three percent of mammal species exhibited a net negative response
(i.e., reduced occurrence or activity) to increasing human presence and/or footprint
across populations, whereas 58% of species were positively associated with increas-
ing disturbance. However, apparent benefits of human presence and footprint tended
to decrease or disappear at higher disturbance levels, indicative of thresholds in mam-
mal species’ capacity to tolerate disturbance or exploit human- dominated landscapes.
Species ecological and life history traits were strong predictors of their responses to
human footprint, with increasing footprint favoring smaller, less carnivorous, faster-
reproducing species. The positive and negative effects of human presence were dis-
tributed more randomly with respect to species trait values, with apparent winners
and losers across a range of body sizes and dietary guilds. Differential responses by
some species to human presence and human footprint highlight the importance of
considering these two forms of human disturbance separately when estimating an-
thropogenic impacts on wildlife. Our approach provides insights into the complex
mechanisms through which human activities shape mammal communities globally,
revealing the drivers of the loss of larger predators in human- modified landscapes.
KEYWORDS
anthropogenic disturbance, carnivore, conservation, environmental filter, human footprint
index, human- wildlife coexistence, occupancy, traits, ungulate, wildlife
3720 
|
   
SUR ACI et Al.
(e.g., recreation, hunting; Kays et al., 2017; Naidoo & Burton, 2020)
and human footprint on the landscape (e.g., habitat fragmentation,
development; Smith et al., 2019; Suraci et al., 2020; Venter et al.,
2016)— have different and often opposing effects on mammals,
likely because these two disturbance types represent distinct sets
of filters that interact differently with species traits. For instance,
mammal body size and trophic position may determine whether the
immediate presence of humans induces fear responses that result
in reduced habitat use and suppressed activity (Clinchy et al., 2016;
Ordiz et al., 2019; Suraci, Clinchy, et al., 2019) or whether human
presence leads to indirect benefits through relaxed predation/
competition (Berger, 2007; Muhly et al., 2011). Species traits may
similarly determine mammal responses to human footprint. Species
with large space requirements may be more negatively impacted
by habitat loss and fragmentation (Crooks et al., 2017; Ripple et al.,
2014), whereas those with higher dietary flexibility may benefit from
increased resource availability in modified landscapes (Bateman &
Fleming, 2012; Newsome & Van Eeden, 2017). Across disturbance
types, suites of traits may be strongly related to both the likelihood
that a species will occur in areas of high human influence (Aronson
et al., 2016; Evans et al., 2011; Santini et al., 2019), as well as the
intensity with which a species uses such areas when present (e.g.,
the number of individuals present and/or the frequency with which
a site is visited; Lewis et al., 2015; Moll et al., 2018; Suraci, Clinchy,
et al., 2019), potentially allowing ecologists to predict shifts in mam-
mal community structure and species interactions with increasing
disturbance intensity.
However, variation among populations may obscure the link be-
tween species- level traits and measured responses to human distur-
bance. Within a given mammal species, populations frequently vary
in the intensity or directionality of their response to a given distur-
bance type depending on local conditions, including habitat produc-
tivity and exposure to anthropogenic mortality (Belote et al., 2020;
Kays et al., 2017; Moreno- Rueda & Pizarro, 2009; Sévêque et al.,
2020). Indeed, studies of recreation impacts in protected areas com-
monly report contrasting responses to human presence by different
populations of the same species (Bateman & Fleming, 2017; Patten
& Burger, 2018; Reed & Merenlender, 2008; Reilly et al., 2017), and
use of developed areas may also vary among populations based on
trade- offs between anthropogenic threat and resource availability
(Bateman & Fleming, 2012; Carlos et al., 2009). Therefore, elucidat-
ing general patterns in mammal responses to human disturbance re-
quires explicitly accounting for variation among populations as well
as across species.
Here, we examine the link between mammal species traits and
responses to human disturbance at the continental scale, hypoth-
esizing that species with particular combinations of trait values
are more negatively impacted by human influence. Specifically, we
hypothesized that larger, more carnivorous species and those with
slower life history strategies (i.e., longer maturation periods, slower
reproductive rates) are more negatively affected by both human
presence and human footprint, given that these species are typically
more likely to come into conflict with humans (Oriol- Cotterill et al.,
2015; Ripple et al., 2014) and may experience higher rates of an-
thropogenic mortality (Darimont et al., 2015; Hill et al., 2020). To
test our hypotheses, we compiled camera trap data for 24 medium-
to- large ungulate and carnivore species from 61 study areas across
North America (Figure 1a), which collectively represent a substantial
proportion of the North American range for all mammal species in
our analysis. Each camera trapping project deployed cameras across
gradients of both human presence (Figure 1b) and human footprint
(Figure 1c), covering a broad range of both disturbance types, from
undeveloped, remote landscapes to well used parks and urban cen-
ters. Our analysis addresses two objectives. We first quantify mam-
mal species responses to human disturbance across North America,
incorporating variation among populations of the same species to
determine the net effect of human presence and human footprint
on habitat use and activity levels for each species. We then model
mammal responses to anthropogenic disturbance as a function of
species ecological and life history traits to discern the mechanistic
drivers of human influence on mammal communities.
2 |  MATERIALS AND METHODS
2.1  |  Camera trapping projects and species
We compiled data from 61 camera trapping studies (here after,
“projects”) from across the continental United States, Canada, and
Mexico, representing 3212 unique camera locations sampled for a
total of 454,252 trap days. Details of each camera trapping project
are presented in Table S1. Projects were conducted between 2007
and 2019, ranged in spatial extent between 0.4 and 61,506 km
2
(
x
± SD = 3473.1 ± 9834.9), deployed camera traps at three to 487
unique camera sites (
x
± SD = 52.6 ± 87.6) and operated for between
63 and 106,480 trap days (
x
± SD = 7446.7 ± 17,488.5). Although
the specific locations across North America sampled in this study
were driven by the availability of existing camera trap data sets,
we endeavored to cover a large and representative proportion of
the continent and to focus on areas with overlapping mammal spe-
cies composition. We focused our analyses on 24 medium- to- large
mammal species in the orders Artiodactyla and Carnivora that were
reliably identifiable from camera trap images and which repre-
sented three trophic guilds: herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores
(Table S2). We only included those species that were detected by
at least three camera trapping projects and with a total of at least
100 independent detections to ensure convergence of occupancy
models (see below). Due to data limitations, we treated eastern and
western spotted skunks (Spilogale putorius and Spilogale gracilis) as
a single species. We considered different camera trapping projects
to approximate separate populations of each focal species, while
acknowledging that there may be some overlap among adjacent
projects.
We used the geographic location of each camera site to stan-
dardize the spacing between sites by (i) treating groups of camera
sites within 10 m of each other as a single site and (ii) subsampling
/ 14
End of Document
263
You May Also Like

FAQs of Mammal Responses to Human Disturbance by Suraci et al. 2021

What are the main findings regarding mammal responses to human presence?
The study found that 33% of mammal species exhibited a negative response to increasing human presence, resulting in reduced occurrence or activity. Species such as elk and moose showed decreased site occupancy, while others like black bears and wolverines increased their activity levels in areas with higher human presence. This suggests that while some species can adapt to human activity, others are significantly hindered by it, highlighting the need for species-specific conservation strategies.
How does human footprint affect mammal species differently?
Human footprint was found to negatively impact 25% of the studied mammal species, particularly larger carnivores like grizzly bears and wolves, which exhibited decreased occupancy and intensity of use in areas with higher landscape modification. Conversely, 38% of species, including raccoons and white-tailed deer, showed positive associations with human footprint, indicating that some mammals can exploit resources in urbanized areas. These contrasting responses underscore the complexity of human impacts on wildlife and the importance of tailored conservation efforts.
What role do ecological and life history traits play in mammal responses?
Ecological and life history traits were identified as strong predictors of how mammal species respond to human disturbances. Larger species with slower reproductive rates tend to be more negatively affected by human footprint, while smaller, faster-reproducing species often thrive in modified landscapes. This relationship emphasizes the need for understanding species-specific traits when developing conservation strategies, as it can help predict which species are likely to persist in human-altered environments.
What implications does this study have for wildlife conservation?
The findings from Suraci et al. (2021) have significant implications for wildlife conservation, particularly in human-dominated landscapes. By identifying species that are more resilient to human disturbances, conservationists can prioritize efforts to protect vulnerable species and maintain biodiversity. Additionally, understanding the thresholds of disturbance tolerance for various species can guide land-use planning and management practices, ensuring that habitats remain viable for both wildlife and human activities.

Related of Mammal Responses to Human Disturbance by Suraci et al. 2021