Abstract

Many environmental patterns that may have profound effects on wildlife communities occur at the landscape scale, e.g. habitat fragmentation, human demography and distribution of various resources. In order to understand how alterations of such patterns could influence e.g. wildlife species occurrences and community composition, it is important to first study these relationships empirically and at the appropriate scale. We surveyed the wildlife community in a boreal ecosystem in central Sweden using pellet group counts, while walking 'wildlife triangles'. Our main aim was to investigate how the distribution of medium- and large-sized wild mammals and large-sized forest birds were affected by environmental variables at the landscape scale. In 2001-2003, pellet groups of mammals and forest birds were counted on 211 triangular routes with a perimeter of 4+4+4 km. The pellet groups which had accumulated after leaf fall were counted in spring. The environmental properties of each triangle, including information on latitude, altitude, infrastructure, land cover, forest type and forest stage, were determined using GIS maps. Statistical analyses involved mainly ordination (Principal Component Analysis, PCA). Significant environmental variables explaining the wildlife community composition and distribution in the boreal ecosystem were altitude, clear-felling and infrastructure. Our conclusion, however, is that most boreal mammal and forest bird species are habitat generalists and show little spatial pattern in distributions at the landscape scale. This indicates that habitat selectiveness probably occurs at a local scale in the boreal forest. Ultimately, our conclusion provides important direction for e.g. conservation measures and wildlife management.

Keywords

forest grouse; landscape; mammals; pellet count; Principal Component Analysis; species richness; wildlife triangle

Published in

Wildlife Biology
2009, Volume: 15, number: 3, pages: 310-318

SLU Authors

• Wallgren, Märtha

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Bergström, Roger

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Forestry Research Institute of Sweden, Skogforsk

• Danell, Kjell

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss


UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2981/08-045

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/26500