Life Sciences Commons^™

Movement Behavior And Habitat Selection Of Juvenile Mountain Lions (Puma Concolor) During Three Behavioral States Of Dispersal, John F. Randolph

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Juvenile dispersal, the act of moving from their natal range to the place where they eventually reproduce and establish an adult home range is hazardous. Juveniles must travel and find food across unfamiliar landscapes, where they must also cross roads, avoid harvest, and navigate developed landscapes. Despite the inherent dangers of dispersal, this demographic process is important for finding suitable mates and reducing inbreeding depression. Wildlife conservation concerns arise when individuals are unable to disperse due to a loss of connectivity, as this can negatively impact population demographics and genetic diversity. We explored the effects of hunting and human-developed landscapes …

Spatiotemporal Dynamics Of Disease: Social And Environmental Drivers Of Movement, Connectivity, And Disease Transmission In Bighorn Sheep, Lauren E. Ricci

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Movement is a fundamental component of animal ecology. Animals move in order to access resources and avoid risk. Movement decisions aggregated across time determine how individuals use space, contact dynamics between individuals within a population, and connectivity across a species range. These patterns that emerge from movement decisions have downstream implications for many ecological processes and a mechanistic understanding of movement can help answer broader questions about ecology.

Disease dynamics are intrinsically tied to movement. Understanding the mechanisms that drive movement can elucidate how disease will spread and impact host populations. In this vein, I employed a suite of movement …