Initiating GPS & VHF Telemetry Studies on Mountain Ungulates in the Greater Yellowstone Area

Telemetry studies on bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) and mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus) in the greater Yellowstone area (GYA) are relatively rare, especially in comparison to other large mammals. There is therefore a significant dearth of detailed information on mountain ungulate demographic and spatial ecology as well as competition dynamics between the non-native mountain goat and the native bighorn sheep. The Mountain Ungulate Research Initiative is seeking to gain this valuable management and conservation information by initiating GPS and VHF radio telemetry studies across the GYA. We have selected ten study sites that represent the varying ecological settings of this ecosystem with differences in climate, geology, herd size, disease history, land use and management, migratory and non-migratory herds, sympatric and allopatric herds, and high and low elevation ranges. In addition, we have developed a dual collar, multiple deployment strategy to efficiently maximize collection of ecological data and support long-term research goals. This includes the deployment of a GPS collar simultaneously with a VHF collar for each animal instrumented. After two years of fine spatial- and temporal-scale data collection the GPS collars will release for recovery while the VHF collars will remain on animals to obtain an additional five years of demographic data. The recovered GPS collars will then be refurbished and redeployed with new VHF collars on additional animals. The presentation will describe these telemetry studies and strategies, as well as report on the progress of current and planned telemetry study efforts

Modeling Summer Habitat Selection of Sympatric Bighorn Sheep and Mountain Goats in the Greater Yellowstone Area

With introduced mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus) populations continuing to expand throughout the mountainous regions of the greater Yellowstone area (GYA), wildlife managers have expressed a need for reliable information to understand mountain goat ecology specific to this region as well as any potential impacts to native species and communities, especially to native and restored bighorn sheep populations. In response to this need for ecological knowledge, we developed and implemented rigorous occupancy survey methodologies in two study areas for three field seasons (2011-2013). A total of 611 surveys were performed over 550 observer-days, capturing spatially-precise locations of 128 bighorn sheep groups and 286 mountain goat groups. These data are being used to develop fine-scale summer habitat-selection models for both mountain goats and bighorn sheep that account for imperfect detection. This presentation reports on the accomplishments from the three field seasons, including what we have learned from preliminary analyses and the next steps to completing a full analysis of the data. Products from this research will provide insight into the potential for resource competition between bighorn sheep and mountain goats.  Development of a mountain goat habitat-selection model will also allow prediction of range expansion of mountain goats into the extensive ranges of bighorn sheep in the eastern mountains of the GYA where small numbers of colonizing mountain goats have recently been observed

Preliminary Results of Occupancy Surveys for Modeling Habitat Selection of Sympatric Bighorn Sheep and Mountain Goats in the Greater Yellowstone Area

Introduced and expanding mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus) populations in the greater Yellowstone area (GYA) have generated significant concern regarding impacts to natural communities, and especially to native and restored bighorn sheep (Ovis Canadensis) populations. To provide natural resource managers with useful and applicable information for managing and conserving these species, occupancy surveys based on rigorous field studies were implemented in 2011 and 2012 to develop summer habitat models for bighorn sheep and mountain goats in the GYA. To enhance the applicability and accuracy of these models, occupancy probabilities obtained from presence and absence observations are integrated with detection probabilities gained from double independent-observer sampling. Between the two field seasons, a total of 361 surveys were performed over 350 observer- days, capturing spatially-precise locations of 80 bighorn sheep groups and 138 mountain goat groups. Preliminary analyses of the data obtained to date were performed for each species to gauge the utility of the field studies and to provide insights for improved study design and implementation of future field work. This presentation reports on the accomplishments from the first two field seasons, including what we have learned from preliminary analyses and the plans for an additional field season for summer 2013

Summer Habitat Selection and Range Expansion of Non-Native Mountain Goats in the Greater Yellowstone Area

The ongoing expansion of non-native mountain goat populations throughout the mountainous regions of the greater Yellowstone area (GYA) may pose a threat to species native to this ecosystem, particularly native and restored bighorn sheep populations with a history of vulnerability to overexploitation, habitat loss, and disease die-offs. To inform future management actions and policy on the breadth of mountain goat expansion, we used unique occupancy methodologies to rigorously survey two study areas with established bighorn sheep and mountain goat populations over three summer field seasons (2011-2013), modeled patterns of scale-specific habitat selection, and predicted the ultimate distribution of suitable habitat and abundance of mountain goats for the entire GYA. We recorded 505 mountain goat detections for 53,098 sampling units. Mountain goat occupancy was most strongly related to slope, slope variance, canopy cover, heat load, and NDVI. We predicted extensive suitable habitat for the GYA covering 10,745 km2 and extending throughout the South Absaroka, Teton, Gros Ventre, Wind River, and Wyoming Ranges. We estimated the GYA to support 5,372-8,918 total mountain goats, or about 2.5-4.2 times the current abundance estimate of 2,104. The potential implications to management and conservation of bighorn sheep and mountain goats are addressed

Nutritional and Demographic Consequences of Varying Elk Migratory Behaviors

Elk (Cervus elaphus) populations in the American West exhibit wide variation in migratory behavior. The traditional view of elk migration holds that migratory elk move from winter range in order to track growth of highly nutritious fresh vegetation into higher elevation areas. Non-migratory elk forego this seasonal movement, typically foraging in lower elevation winter range areas throughout the summer. Although the effect of summer nutrition on elk body condition and reproductive success is well known, the nutritional and demographic consequences of these differing migratory behaviors remain unclear. We developed a predictive model of summer forage quality to compare the nutrition available to migrants and non-migrants in a partially migratory population of elk in western Montana. Non-migratory elk had access to significantly higher forage quality than their migratory counterparts; the lower forage quality available to migrants is predicted to result in reduced reproductive success based on published studies linking nutrition with elk demographic rates. We therefore expect non-migrants to have higher fecundity rates and to comprise a higher proportion of the population relative to migrants. Harvest management actions that reduce survival rates of non-migrants or increase survival rates of migrants may be an effective tool for maintaining migratory behavior in partially migratory populations

Fire and Forage: Variability in Elk Forage on a Landscape of Wildfire and Changing Fire Management

Forest management practices can modify ungulate nutritional resources through landscape-scale processes such as prescribed fire and wildfire. The resulting availability and distribution of nutritional resources can affect ungulate survival, reproduction, and distribution. Our primary goals were to evaluate how landscapes with varying post-fire successional stages influence elk summer nutritional resources and to quantify the variability of nutritional resources associated with varying fire histories and management practices during 1900–2015. Within 3 elk population ranges located in the Bitterroot Valley, Montana, we measured elk forage quality across a range of land cover types and fire histories and developed a landscape-scale forage quality model. Based on historical wildfire and prescribed fire data, we reconstructed decadal land cover models and used our forage models to predict fire-related variations in forage quality each decade within the elk summer ranges. Forage quality was predicted to decrease with successional stage. The area burned by wildfire increased 242–1,772% during 1990–2015 as compared to 1900–1990, resulting in firerelated variations of predicted nutritional resources. The area of highest forage quality varied, increasing 31.3–48.5% in 2 ranges and decreasing 2.4% in 1 range, from 1900–1990 to 1990–2015. These results highlight the important effect of wildfire on the distribution of ungulate nutritional resources and demonstrate that ungulate nutritional resources likely vary over time with variation in fire history and management practices

Fence types influence pronghorn movement responses

Abstract Impediments that constrain animal movements across spatiotemporally heterogeneous landscapes can result in reduced or complete loss of access to critical resources. Across their range in North America, pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) are exposed to fences that can affect their ability to permeate the landscape, access critical resources, and respond to climatic variations. Understanding pronghorn movement responses to fences is essential for improving landscape permeability; however, prior studies provide only limited insight due to lack of information on fence characteristics and small sample sizes. Our study used hourly collar locations from adult female pronghorn in six herds in Montana, USA, and identified encounters with mapped fences to evaluate three movement responses (i.e., probability of an unaltered initial response, probability of crossing following an altered initial response, and passage time following an altered initial response) as a function of fence and landscape attributes. Based on 5581 encounters identified from movement pathways of 265 collared pronghorn and 979 km of mapped fences, we found that variability in pronghorn fence response was correlated with fence type. Woven wire fences substantially reduced unaltered initial and crossing responses and increased passage times as compared with low (i.e., average lowest wire height <41 cm) or high (i.e., average lowest wire height ≥41 cm) strand fences. Both low and high strand fences elicited similar responses of being relatively permeable at the initial encounter with reduced permeability thereafter. Fence crossing probabilities following altered initial responses increased through time modestly for strand fences but only negligibly for woven wire fences, with passage times averaging approximately 14 h. Pronghorn knowledge of and fidelity to specific permeable locations along fences, which may be due to inconsistent fence and landscape characteristics along the fence stretch, likely allow some woven wire fences and most strand fences, regardless of the average lowest wire height, to be permeable. Improving landscape permeability for pronghorn should focus on removing woven wire fences, replacing woven wire fences with strand fences, and incorporating variation in the lowest wire heights into new fence designs or modifications of existing fences

Integration of Isoelectric Focusing with Parallel Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate Gel Electrophoresis for Multidimensional Protein Separations in a Plastic Microfludic Network,” Anal.

An integrated protein concentration/separation system, combining non-native isoelectric focusing (IEF) with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) gel electrophoresis on a polymer microfluidic chip, is reported. The system provides significant analyte concentration and extremely high resolving power for separated protein mixtures. The ability to introduce and isolate multiple separation media in a plastic microfluidic network is one of two key requirements for achieving multidimensional protein separations. The second requirement lies in the quantitative transfer of focused proteins from the first to second separation dimensions without significant loss in the resolution acquired from the first dimension. Rather than sequentially sampling protein analytes eluted from IEF, focused proteins are electrokinetically transferred into an array of orthogonal microchannels and further resolved by SDS gel electrophoresis in a parallel and high-throughput format. Resolved protein analytes are monitored using noncovalent, environment-sensitive, fluorescent probes such as Sypro Red. In comparison with covalently labeling proteins, the use of Sypro staining during electrophoretic separations not only presents a generic detection approach for the analysis of complex protein mixtures such as cell lysates but also avoids additional introduction of protein microheterogeneity as the result of labeling reaction. A comprehensive 2-D protein separation is completed in less than 10 min with an overall peak capacity of ∼1700 using a chip with planar dimensions of as small as 2 cm × 3 cm. Significant enhancement in the peak capacity can be realized by simply raising the density of microchannels in the array, thereby increasing the number of IEF fractions further analyzed in the size-based separation dimension