Date of Award

5-17-2023

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Reproductive ecology research is vital for determining the timing of important life history events and improving our understanding of the space use and behavior of individuals that are rearing offspring. This is particularly relevant for wildlife populations at the northern limit of the boreal forest, where climate change is rapidly affecting the ecosystem at two to four times the rate of mid-latitude regions. In this study, I used fine-scale GPS location data (1 - 4hr fix-rates) collected near Wiseman, Alaska over the summers of 2018 and 2019 to analyze the movements of 10 female Canada lynx during their offspring-rearing periods. I identified differences in behavior across four periods of kit development: pre-denning, nursing, prey-provisioning, and post-denning. In this high-latitude study site (~67°N), parturition occurred approximately three weeks later in the season compared to lynx in the southern portion of their range (~47°N). Home range areas of females were greatly reduced following parturition, while daily travel distances were mostly unchanged. Additionally, individual females appeared to diverge from each other in the strategies they employed to meet the energetic needs of themselves and their kits. These results indicate that latitudinal differences play a role in affecting the timing of mating, gestation, and birth in Canada lynx. In addition, these observed changes in maternal movement behavior across the periods of kit development suggest that female lynx face the unique challenge of restricting their space use to a small radius around the den site while kits are young (i.e., < 2 months old). I found evidence that females likely optimize their hunting strategies in a variety of ways to address this challenge and find sufficient prey for themselves and their offspring. However, these strategies rely on access to abundant prey populations in close proximity to denning habitat, which may be negatively impacted by climate change and the development of human infrastructure in this region.

Handle

http://hdl.handle.net/11122/13242

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