Date of Award:

5-2024

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Wildland Resources

Committee Chair(s)

Julie K. Young

Committee

Julie K. Young

Committee

Clark Rushing

Committee

Tricia Atwood

Committee

David Stoner

Committee

Kevin Bunnell

Abstract

Carnivores are ecologically important to global ecosystems because they interact with their prey species and other carnivores in a variety of ways. Many carnivores have suffered habitat loss and persecution by humans, which has led some populations to become imperiled or locally extirpated. Despite these challenges, cougars (Puma concolor) continue to exist across North, Central, and South America. They exhibit behavioral adaptation across their wide range, thriving in terrain that ranges from temperate forests, to steppe scrub, to rainforest, to rugged deserts. Across these diverse ecosystems, cougars can successfully establish territories, hunt prey, and raise young to persist for generations. My research focuses on individual variation and behavioral plasticity that cougars exhibit in three key aspects: predation, space use, and reproduction. I collected over 3.5 years of data on adult, subadult, and neonate mountain lions across three study sites in Utah. I found that cougars are resilient in the face of competition with black bears over prey resources. Although bears can displace cougars from their prey items, cougars do not suffer consequences due to loss of prey. Cougars are rarely displaced from their fresh kills in Utah as they are in other areas. Additionally, I found that cougars use a variety of strategies to modify their space use over the course of seasonal changes in resource availability. Some cougars remain resident in one location, but others expand or constrict their home ranges to modify their energetic output and access to prey or suitable landscape features. Across all strategies, cougars were able to obtain consistent biomass from their primary prey, suggesting that cougars use these spatial strategies to allow them to acquire resources over time. Finally, I found that experienced cougar mothers are more successful at raising young than inexperienced cougar mothers overall, but that individual mothers exhibit variation in the amount care they provide to their kittens. Increased levels of maternal care contributed to improved kitten survival for both experience and new mothers. Across space use, predation, and reproduction, individual variation and use of different strategies enabled cougars to achieve successful outcomes, contributing to their overall fitness.

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