Progress 01/01/11 to 12/31/11
Outputs
OUTPUTS: From Jan 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011 we performed activities that would help us achieve the objectives associated with goals one, two, and three of this project. Goal: 1.) Obtain information to better manage mountain lions as a metapopulation at broad geographical scales of biological relevance by delineating population genetic structure of mountain lions in Nevada. 2.) Gather information to help managers create scientifically sound harvest objectives by estimating movement rates between populations and identifying source and sink populations. 3.) Maintain balance between mountain lions and prey. We accomplished the first two objectives by completing modeling of the genetic structure and source-sink dynamics of mountain lion populations throughout the state of Nevada and the Sierra Nevada mountain range. We have also continued to capture mountain lions and collect data on predation rates and prey selection in the field by backtracking to GPS clusters in order to achieve goal #3. We have captured 17 additional mountain lions and visited over 600 additional predation sites since the last report was provided for this grant. We have now captured and collared a total of 37 mountain lions and visited over 1000 GPS clusters (potential predation sites). EVENTS: From January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011 Alyson Andreasen, the PhD student working on the project, gave seven presentations to disseminate information including 3 professional conferences where she presented the preliminary results of the genetic analysis. Those professional meetings were attended to disseminate information to other scientists to increase scientific knowledge about mountain lion movement, ecology, and source-sink dynamics that may occur at the landscape scale for large mammals. These professional meetings include the Nevada Chapter of the Wildlife Society in Reno, Nevada; the 10th Mountain Lion Workshop in Bozeman, Montana; and the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists in Portland, Oregon. Alyson also was invited to give a talk and presented information about the overall project to the Wildlife Conservation Society at their national headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. The other 3 talks were public outreach presentations to reach target audiences including an invited presentation for the Mason T. Ortiz Camp- an outdoor skills camp for kids; a local travel club that was attended by over 70 local professionals; and to the Nevada Bighorns Unlimited Sportsman's group (NBU). These talks were designed to educate the public about mountain lion ecology in Nevada and also aimed at those that live on the urban/wildand edge, how to live with mountain lions. We anticipate that these educational opportunities to the public and partners (NBU) will ultimately help increase tolerance of mountain lions and reduce conflicts with humans and livestock which are of the largest threats to the long-term persistence of mountain lions today. PARTICIPANTS: PARTICIPANTS: Dr. Kelley Stewart worked closely with the PhD student to interpret the model based genetic results including population structure and source-sink dynamics. Dr. Stewart attended the presentations given at the Nevada Chapter of the Wildlife Society in Reno, Nevada, the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists in Portland, Oregon as well as the presentation given to our partner Nevada Bighorns Unlimited. Dr. Stewart was involved with capturing and collaring a set of mountain lion kittens with the PhD student on the project and has been out with the PhD student to investigate several predation sites in the field. Dr. David Thain, Co-PI on project has provided veterinary expertise and assistance on the project, including the supervision of use of drugs for chemical immobilization of mountain lions. Dr. Jon Beckmann, with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), has been assisting with logistical support of the project including providing field support in the form field biologists through WCS. Dr. Beckmann attended the presentation at the 10th Annual Mountain Lion Workshop in Bozeman, Montana. Alyson Andreasen, the PhD student on the project implemented model based Bayesian genetic methods to model population structure and source-sink dynamics including re-analysis. She interpreted the results of the genetic analysis with the assistance of Drs. Kelley Stewart, William Longland, Jon Beckmann, and Matthew Forister. Alyson gave presentations at all forums to disseminate information. She trained and supervised the field technician, Kelly Sivy that worked on the project through October 2011. With the assistance of the field crew, Alyson has captured and collared an additional 17 mountain lions in the study area since support was provided for a total sample size of 37 individuals. Alyson and the field technician, Kelly Sivy, have together searched over 1000 potential predation sites. Funding has been provided by partner organizations including: the Nevada Department of Wildlife, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Nevada Division of State Lands, and the University of Nevada. Local sportsman's organizations have provided a substantial amount of financial support including: Nevada Bighorns Unlimited, the Carson Valley Chukar Club, the Northern Nevada Chapter of the Safari Club, and Ruby Mountain Chapter of the Safari Club. In addition, the Sierra Fire Protection District provided use of property at many local fire stations throughout Washoe County to park the field RV where the field technician has camped depending on the location of her field work. In addition to the PhD student, training and professional development has been provided to the field technician, Kelly Sivy, who is aspiring to obtain a graduate degree in ecology. She worked on the project between October 2010 and October 2011 backtracking to GPS clusters and collected data at those sites. Kelly Sivy started graduate school at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in January 2011 and was recently awarded a NSF graduate fellowship. We regularly take volunteers into the field to locate mountain lion predation sites and on mountain lion captures. TARGET AUDIENCES: TARGET AUDIENCES: We often take volunteers into the field to collect data at mountain lion kill sites or on mountain lion captures. Public volunteer opportunities have successfully served to educate the public, particularly sport hunters and livestock owners regarding many of the misconceptions about mountain lions in Nevada. Volunteers have included a broad range of people in the public including sportsmen, ranchers, graduate and undergraduate students, and high-school and elementary school kids. The opportunity for volunteers to work closely on the project has proved valuable in educating the public regarding mountain lion ecology in Nevada and garnered support for the project from many unlikely sources. In addition to volunteer opportunities, we are providing education to the general public through public presentations. These talks are designed to educate the public about mountain lion ecology in Nevada but are also aimed at those those that live on the urban/wildand edge, how to live with mountain lions. We anticipate that these educational opportunities will ultimately help reduce conflicts with humans and livestock which is one of the largest threats to the long-term persistence of mountain lions today. We also regularly meet target audiences informally during our day to day work in the field. In particular, we often have informal interactions with land owners, particularly those at the urban/wildland interface, ranchers, and livestock owners to ask permission to gain access onto their property to investigate a predation site made by a collared mountain lion. These informal efforts have proven very valuable at educating the public about mountain lions (movement, behavior, and diet), changing misconceptions about mountain lions in Nevada, and garnering support for this project from unlikely stakeholders. We consider these interactions as valuable educational opportunities to both educate the public as well as to understand how local target audiences (people living at urban/wildand edge, ranchers, and sportsmen) view mountain lions and other predatory wildlife. To disseminate information regarding the project, we attended the Nevada Chapter of the Wildlife Society Symposium in Reno, the 10th Annual Mountain Lion Workshop in Bozemann, Montana, and the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists in Portland, Oregon to present the preliminary results of the genetic analysis. To reach target audiences, we also gave presentations to the sportsman's organization - Nevada Bighorns Unlimited; a local travel club upon invitation which was attended by over 70 local professionals; and the Mason T Ortiz Camp - a outdoor skills camp for kids upon invitation. We are currently preparing two manuscripts for publication in peer reviewed journals pertaining to the genetic analysis and to our findings relating to diets of mountain lions in western Nevada. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
Significant changes in knowledge have occurred during this reporting period. Before this research, we were unaware if mountain lion populations in Nevada were genetically distinct or one panmictic population. Results of previous genetic research on mountain lions throughout the western US have been ambiguous with some studies showing population structure exists in mountain lions in noncontiguous habitat (Ernest et al. 2003; McRae et al. 2005) while others have failed to show any substructure of populations (Sinclair et al. 2001; Anderson et al. 2004). In addition, although it is recognized that identifying source and sink populations is necessary for responsible management of hunted mountain lion populations, only a few studies we are aware of have attempted to do so, and these were through extensive monitoring of a radio-collared populations (Stoner et al. 2007; Robison 2008). Furthermore, estimating movement rates in the field to identify source-sink dynamics that occur at large scales is logistically infeasible in most systems. Nonetheless, with resources provided by the Nevada Agricultural Experiment Station Hatch Grant, we were able to identify distinct genetic populations throughout Nevada and model source-sink dynamics for these mountain lion populations using recently developed Bayesian genetic techniques. We anticipate significant changes in action within the scientific community to result from this research as this is the first research that we are aware of that models source-sink dynamics of a large mammal species using a genetic approach. Finally, we anticipate changes in conditions to result from this research as the results can be used managers can create biologically meaningful management boundaries for mountain lions and develop harvest quotas that take into consideration the amount of immigration sustaining populations in different areas. We are currently finalizing a manuscript summarizing the results of these re-analyses that will be re-submitted to the journal Molecular Ecology for review in March 2012. In addition to the outcomes/impact described above resulting from genetic analysis, significant change in knowledge is occurring as a result of the field data we are collecting on prey selection of mountain lions. We are currently working on a manuscript for publication of these dietary results in a peer-reviewed journal. We anticipate that these results will be submitted for publication in the fall of 2012. We anticipate changes in actions and changes in conditions to result from this research as managers, the public, and local interest groups, gain a better understanding of the dietary patterns of mountain lions in Nevada.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/10 to 12/31/10
Outputs
OUTPUTS: From July 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010 we focused on performing activities that would help us reach goals one two of this project. Goal: 1.) Obtain information to better manage mountain lions as a metapopulation at broad geographical scales of biological relevance. 2.) Gather information to help managers create scientifically sound harvest objectives. To reach these goals we successfully genotyped 776 of 796 tissue samples obtained from hunter harvested mountain lions throughout Nevada and the eastern Sierra Nevada mountain range at thirteen microsatellite loci. We then modeled the genetic structure of mountain lion populations throughout the state of Nevada and the eastern Sierra Nevada mountain range using a combination of spatial and aspatial model-based Bayesian clustering methods where individuals are assigned to populations based on their unique genotypes. We were then estimated the asymmetrical rate of effective movement between those populations using additional Bayesian genotyping methods. From this data, we modeled source-sink dynamics for mountain lions throughout the Nevada and eastern California. PARTICIPANTS: Dr. Kelley Stewart, has been working closely with the PhD student to interpret the model based genetic results including population structure and source-sink dynamics. Dr. Stewart has attended all presentations disseminating information to the public and stakeholders. Dr. Stewart worked extensively on analyses of field collected data with student intern, Steven Mathews, to test hypotheses regarding habitat selection at mountain lion kill sites. Dr. David Thain, Co-PI on project has provided veterinary expertise and assistance on the project, including the supervision of use of drugs for chemical immobilization of mountain lions. Dr. Jon Beckmann, with the Wildlife Conservation Society provided field support in the form of a WCS technician over the summer of 2010 on the project. Dr. Beckmann assisted in interpreting the model based genetic results. Alyson Andreasen, the PhD student on the project conducted laboratory genetic analyses. She genotyped individuals and implemented model based Bayesian genetic methods to model population structure and source-sink dynamics. She interpreted the results of the genetic analysis with the guidance of Drs. Kelley Stewart, William Longland, Jon Beckmann, and Matthew Forister. Alyson gave presentations at all forums to disseminate information. She trained and supervises the field technician working on the project. With the assistance of the field crew, she has captured and collared an additional 14 mountain lions in the study area since support was provided for a total sample size of 20 individuals. Dr. William Longland, the PhD student's co-advisor, has been working closely with the PhD student on trouble shooting genetic analysis and interpreting genetic results. Funding has been provided by partner organizations including: the Nevada Department of Wildlife, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Nevada Division of State Lands, and the University of Nevada. Local sportsman's organizations have provided support including: Nevada Bighorns Unlimited, the Carson Valley Chukar Club, the Northern Nevada Chapter of the Safari Club, and Ruby Mountain Chapter of the Safari Club. In addition, the Sierra Fire Protection District has provided use of property at many local fire stations throughout Washoe County to park the field RV where the field technician camps depending on the location of her field work. In addition to the PhD student, training and professional development has been provided to the field technician, Kelly Sivy, who is aspiring to obtain a graduate degree in ecology. She has been working on the project since October 2010 backtracking to GPS clusters and collected data at those sites. Additionally, 5 undergraduate students have been working on different aspects of the project from laboratory genetic preparation to collecting and analyzing data from mountain lion kill sites in the field. We also take volunteers into the field to locate mountain lion predation sites and on mountain lion captures. The opportunity for volunteers to work closely on the project has proved valuable in educating the public regarding mountain lion ecology in Nevada and garnered support for the project from many unlikely sources. TARGET AUDIENCES: To disseminate information regarding the project, we attended the Nevada Chapter of the Wildlife Society Symposium in Reno and presented the results of the genetic analysis. To reach target audiences, we also gave presentations at the Carson Valley Chukar Club annual seminar and the Northern Nevada Chapter of the Safari Club monthly dinner upon invitation. In addition, we gave a presentation at the Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology forum to provide UNR graduate students information regarding the research we are conducting. We often take volunteers into the field to collect data at mountain lion kill sites or on mountain lion captures. Public volunteer opportunities have successfully served to educate the public, particularly sport hunters and livestock owners regarding many of the misconceptions about mountain lions in Nevada. In addition to volunteer opportunities, we are providing education to the general public through public presentations. These talks are designed to educate the public about mountain lion ecology in Nevada but are also aimed at those those that live on the urban/wildand edge, how to live with mountain lions. We anticipate that these educational opportunities will ultimately help reduce conflicts with humans and livestock which is one of the largest threats to the long-term persistence of mountain lions today. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
Significant changes in knowledge have occurred during this reporting period. Before this research, we were unaware if mountain lion populations in Nevada were genetically distinct or one panmictic population. Results of previous genetic research on mountain lions throughout the western US have been ambiguous with some studies showing population structure exists in mountain lions in noncontiguous habitat (Ernest et al. 2003; McRae et al. 2005) while others have failed to show any substructure of populations (Sinclair et al. 2001; Anderson et al. 2004). In addition, although it is recognized that identifying source and sink populations is necessary for responsible management of hunted mountain lion populations, only a few studies we are aware of have attempted to do so, and these were through extensive monitoring of a radio-collared populations (Stoner et al. 2007; Robison 2008). Furthermore, estimating movement rates in the field to identify source-sink dynamics that occur at large scales is logistically infeasible in most systems. Nonetheless, with resources provided by the Nevada Agricultural Experiment Station Hatch Grant, we were able to identify distinct genetic populations throughout Nevada and model source-sink dynamics for these mountain lion populations using recently developed Bayesian genetic techniques. We anticipate significant changes in action within the scientific community to result from this research as this is the first research that we are aware of that models source-sink dynamics of a large mammal species using a genetic approach. Finally, we anticipate changes in conditions to result from this research as the results can be used managers can create biologically meaningful management boundaries for mountain lions and develop harvest quotas that take into consideration the amount of immigration sustaining populations in different areas. We are currently finalizing a manuscript summarizing the results of these analyses that will be submitted to the journal Molecular Ecology for review in February 2011.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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