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Roosting Habitat Use and Selection By Northern Spotted Owls During Natal Dispersal

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Title Roosting Habitat Use and Selection By Northern Spotted Owls During Natal Dispersal
Names Sovern, Stan G. (creator)
Forsman, Eric D. (creator)
Dugger, Katie M. (creator)
Taylor, Margaret (creator)
Date Issued 2015-02 (iso8601)
Note To the best of our knowledge, one or more authors of this paper were federal employees when contributing to this work. This is the publisher’s final pdf. The article was published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. and is in the public domain. The published article can be found at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291937-2817.
Abstract We studied habitat selection by northern spotted owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) during natal
dispersal in Washington State, USA, at both the roost site and landscape scales. We used logistic regression
to obtain parameters for an exponential resource selection function based on vegetation attributes in roost and
random plots in 76 forest stands that were used for roosting. We used a similar analysis to evaluate selection of
landscape habitat attributes based on 301 radio-telemetry relocations and random points within our study
area. We found no evidence of within-stand selection for any of the variables examined, but 78% of roosts
were in stands with at least some large (>50 cm dbh) trees. At the landscape scale, owls selected for stands
with high canopy cover (>70%). Dispersing owls selected vegetation types that were more similar to habitat
selected by adult owls than habitat that would result from following guidelines previously proposed to
maintain dispersal habitat. Our analysis indicates that juvenile owls select stands for roosting that have greater
canopy cover than is recommended in current agency guidelines.
Genre Article
Topic Dispersal habitat
Identifier Sovern, S. G., Forsman, E. D., Dugger, K. M., & Taylor, M. (2015). Roosting habitat use and selection by northern spotted owls during natal dispersal. Journal of Wildlife Management, 79(2), 254-262. doi:10.1002/jwmg.834

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