Multilevel landscape utilization of the Siberian flying squirrel: Scale effects on species habitat use.

ABSTRACT: Animals use and select habitat at multiple hierarchical levels and at different spatial scales within each level. Still, there is little knowledge on the scale effects at different spatial levels of species occupancy patterns. The objective of this study was to examine nonlinear effects and optimal-scale landscape characteristics that affect occupancy of the Siberian flying squirrel, Pteromys volans, in South- and Mid-Finland. We used presence-absence data (n = 10,032 plots of 9 ha) and novel approach to separate the effects on site-, landscape-, and regional-level occupancy patterns. Our main results were: landscape variables predicted the placement of population patches at least twice as well as they predicted the occupancy of particular sites; the clear optimal value of pr

SUBMITTER: Remm J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5648651 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature