Pennsylvania Project: Movement and habitat use of sika and white-tailed deer on Assateague Island National Seashore

Pennsylvania Project

Movement and habitat use of sika and white-tailed deer on Assateague Island National Seashore

July 2006 - August 2008

Personnel

Participating Agencies

Assateague Island National Seashore

Sonja Christensen with captured sika deer

This research project was conducted to describe habitat use of sika deer (Cervus nippon) and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and possibly attribute the effects of ungulate herbivory to specific deer species, if spatial separation in habitat use could be identified. Sturm (2007) conducted an exclosure study to document the effect of feral horse (Equus caballus) herbivory, deer herbivory, and horse and deer herbivory combined on plant communities. Sturm (2007) found that ungulate herbivory reduced plant species richness, evenness, and diversity in the maritime forest and affected species composition in all habitats studied. Sturm (2007) also found that herbivory on some species could be directly attributable to either horse or deer. However, the effects of sika and white-tailed deer herbivory could not be separated via an exclosure study design because of the difficulty of passively excluding one deer species but not the other.

Research Publications

Research Publications	Publication Date
Wagner, T., D.R. Diefenbach, A.S. Norton, and S.A. Christensen. 2011. Using multilevel models to quantify heterogeneity in resource selection. Journal of Wildlife Management 75:1788-1796. \| Abstract \| Download	November 2011	Models of resource selection are being used increasingly to predict or model the effects of management actions rather than simply quantifying habitat selection. Multilevel, or hierarchical, models are becoming an increasingly popular method to analyze animal resource selection because they impose a relatively weak stochastic constraint to model heterogeneity in habitat use but also account for unequal sample sizes among individuals. However, few studies have taken advantage of the ability of multilevel models to model coefficients as a function of predictors that may influence habitat use at different scales or quantify differences in resource selection among groups. We use an example with white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) to illustrate how to model resource use as a function of distance to road that varies among deer by road density at the home range scale. Also, we use multilevel models with sika deer (Cervus nippon) and white-tailed deer to examine whether resource selection differs between species. Multilevel models can improve our understanding of how resource selection varies among individuals and provides an objective, quantifiable approach to assess differences or changes in resource selection.

Technical Publications

Technical Publications	Publication Date
Diefenbach, D. R., and S. A. Christensen. 2009. Movement and habitat use of sika and white-tailed deer on Assateague Island National Seashore, Maryland. Natural Resource Technical Report NPS/NER/NRTR—2009/140. National Park Service, Philadelphia, PA.	July 2009

Presentations

Presentations	Presentation Date
Christensen, S. A., D. R. Diefenbach, and M. Sturm. Habitat use of sika and white-tailed deer on Assateague Island National Seashore, Maryland. Southeast deer study group meeting. 25-27 February, 2007, Ocean City, Maryland.	February 2007

Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations	Publication Date
Christensen, S. A. 2010. Movement and habitat use of sika and white-tailed deer on Assateague Island National Seashore. Thesis, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA.	May 2010

Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Pennsylvania Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources