Occurrence of mesocarnivores in montane sky islands: How spatial and temporal overlap informs rabies management in a regional hotspot.

ABSTRACT: Interspecific interactions among mesocarnivores can influence community dynamics and resource partitioning. Insights into these interactions can enhance understanding of local ecological processes that have impacts on pathogen transmission, such as the rabies lyssavirus. Host species ecology can provide an important baseline for disease management strategies especially in biologically diverse ecosystems and heterogeneous landscapes. We used a mesocarnivore guild native to the southwestern United States, a regional rabies hotspot, that are prone to rabies outbreaks as our study system. Gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis), bobcats (Lynx rufus), and coyotes (Canis latrans) share large portions of their geographic ranges and can compete for resources, occu

SUBMITTER: Veals AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8570508 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature