Temperature driven density gradients of two congeneric felids reveal contrasting responses to climate change at a range margin.

ABSTRACT: Climate change causes divergent range shifts in cold versus warm-tolerant species, potentially reshuffling biotic interactions at range margins. Yet, outside of coarse distributional metrics, little information exists regarding the ecology of species along range peripheries. Here, we use camera traps and spatially-explicit-capture-recapture (secr) modeling to examine how climatic gradients influence current and future patterns of density, abundance, and density overlap between two congeneric felids - cold-adapted Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) and warm-adapted bobcats (Lynx rufus) - at a range margin in Washington, United States. Temperature drove density patterns along the range margin, with lynx densities declining and bobcat densities increasing as a function of temperature. Future abund

SUBMITTER: Singh S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12748809 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature