Dataset Information

Density and Home Range of Cats in a Small Inhabited Mediterranean Island.

ABSTRACT: There is growing concern about effectively controlling cat populations due to their impact on biodiversity, especially on islands. To plan this management, it is essential to know the cat population size, sterilization rates, and space they use. Small inhabited islands can have very high cat densities; thus, this study aimed to evaluate cat density and home range on a small tourist island in the Spanish Mediterranean. Surveys in the urban area identified individual cats using a photographic catalog, and camera trapping was conducted in the scrubland area. GPS devices were fitted on three urban cats. The overall cat density was estimated to be 308 cats/km², varying between the urban area (1084 cats/km²) and the uninhabited scrubland (27 cats/km²). Urban cats had smaller average home ranges (0.38 ha or 1.25 ha, depending on the estimation method) compared to scrubland cats (9.53 ha). Penetration of scrubland cats into the urban area was not detected. These results indicate that the urban area acts as a source of cats for the scrubland. Although the total sterilization rate was high (90.3%), the large cat population implies that the density would take over a decade to decrease to acceptable levels. Therefore, complementary measures for managing this cat population are recommended.

SUBMITTER: Molina-Bernabeu S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11350886 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Density and Home Range of Cats in a Small Inhabited Mediterranean Island.

Molina-Bernabeu Sara S López-Iborra Germán M GM

Animals : an open access journal from MDPI 20240806 16

There is growing concern about effectively controlling cat populations due to their impact on biodiversity, especially on islands. To plan this management, it is essential to know the cat population size, sterilization rates, and space they use. Small inhabited islands can have very high cat densities; thus, this study aimed to evaluate cat density and home range on a small tourist island in the Spanish Mediterranean. Surveys in the urban area identified individual cats using a photographic cata ...[more]

PMID: 39199822

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Project description:Spatial capture-recapture models (SCRs) provide an integrative statistical tool for analyzing animal movement and population patterns. Although incorporating home range formation with a theoretical basis of animal movement into SCRs can improve the prediction of animal space use in a heterogeneous landscape, this approach is challenging owing to the sparseness of recapture events. In this study, we developed an advection-diffusion capture-recapture model (ADCR), which is an extension of SCRs incorporating home range formation with advection-diffusion formalism, providing a new framework to estimate population density and landscape permeability. we tested the unbiasedness of the estimator using simulated capture-recapture data generated by a step selection function. We also compared the accuracy of population density estimates and home range shapes with those from SCR incorporating the least-cost path and basic SCR. In addition, ADCR was applied to a real dataset of Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus) in Japan to demonstrate the capacity of the ADCR to detect geographical barriers that constrain animal movements. Population density and permeability of ADCR were substantially unbiased for simulated datasets. ADCR could detect environmental signals on connectivity more sensitively and could estimate population density, home range shapes, and size variations better than the existing models. For the application to the bear dataset, ADCR could detect the effect of water bodies as a barrier to movement, which is consistent with previous studies, whereas estimates by SCR with the least-cost path were difficult to interpret. ADCR provides unique opportunities to elucidate both individual- and population-level ecological processes from capture-recapture data. By offering a formal link with step selection functions to estimate animal movement, it is suitable for simultaneously modeling capture-recapture data and animal movement data. This study provides a basis for studies of the interplay between animal movement processes and population patterns.

Dataset Information

Density and Home Range of Cats in a Small Inhabited Mediterranean Island.

Publications

Density and Home Range of Cats in a Small Inhabited Mediterranean Island.

Similar Datasets

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