Modeling connectivity to identify current and future anthropogenic barriers to movement of large carnivores: A case study in the American Southwest.

ABSTRACT: This study sought to identify critical areas for puma (Puma concolor) movement across the state of Arizona in the American Southwest and to identify those most likely to be impacted by current and future human land uses, particularly expanding urban development and associated increases in traffic volume. Human populations in this region are expanding rapidly, with the potential for urban centers and busy roads to increasingly act as barriers to demographic and genetic connectivity of large-bodied, wide-ranging carnivores such as pumas, whose long-distance movements are likely to bring them into contact with human land uses and whose low tolerance both for and from humans may put them at risk unless opportunities for safe passage through or around human-modified landscapes are presen

SUBMITTER: McClure ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5468141 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature