Jerry Belant

Michigan State University | MSU · Department of Fisheries and Wildlife

Prey must balance resource acquisition with predator avoidance for survival and reproduction. To reduce risk of predation, prey may avoid areas with high predator use, but if they are unable to due to resource acquisition requirements, they may instead change their habitat use or movement speed to mitigate predation risk. Prey risk response may dep...

Large carnivore species frequently predate and consume wild or domestic prey, which is referred to as food-related predation. Large carnivores can also hunt and kill prey exceeding their immediate needs (i.e., they do not consume prey), which is referred to as surplus predation. We used 173 records of livestock predations by gray wolves (Canis lupu...

Analytic reproducibility is important for scientific credibility in ecology, but the extent to which scientific literature meets this criterion is not well understood. We surveyed 497 papers published in 2018–2022 in 9 ecology‐related journals. We focused on papers that used hierarchical models to estimate species distribution and abundance. We det...

Wildlife tagging provides critical insights into animal movement ecology, physiology, and behavior amid global ecosystem changes. However, the stress induced by capture, handling, and tagging can impact post-release locomotion and activity and, consequently, the interpretation of study results. Here, we analyze post-tagging effects on 1585 individu...

Aim The assembly of species into communities and ecoregions is the result of interacting factors that affect plant and animal distribution and abundance at biogeographic scales. Here, we empirically derive ecoregions for mammals to test whether human disturbance has become more important than climate and habitat resources in structuring communities...

Management of wolves is controversial in many jurisdictions where wolves live, which underscores the importance of rigor, transparency, and reproducibility when evaluating outcomes of management actions. Treves and Louchouarn 2022 (hereafter TL) predicted outcomes for various fall 2021 hunting scenarios following Wisconsin’s judicially mandated hun...

SNAPSHOT USA is a multicontributor, long‐term camera trap survey designed to survey mammals across the United States. Participants are recruited through community networks and directly through a website application (https://www.snapshot-usa.org/). The growing Snapshot dataset is useful, for example, for tracking wildlife population responses to lan...

Direct human-caused mortality accounts for about half of all large mammal mortality in North America. For social species like gray wolves (Canis lupus), the death of pack members can disrupt pack structure and cause pack dissolution, and mortality of breeding adults or wolves during reproduction and pup-rearing can decrease pup recruitment. We esti...

Background Prey are more vulnerable during migration due to decreased familiarity with their surroundings and spatially concentrated movements. Predators may respond to increased prey vulnerability by shifting their ranges to match prey. Moose (Alces alces) and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are primary gray wolf (Canis lupus) prey and...

The Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa manages for sustainable subsistence harvests of moose (mooz; Alces alces ) and white‐tailed deer (waawaashkeshi; Odocoileus virginianus ). Moose populations in northern Minnesota, USA, are declining, which may necessitate alterations to Indigenous subsistence practices. Moose and deer exhibit seasona...

Climate change is among the greatest drivers of biodiversity loss, threatening up to 15–30% of described species by the end of the twenty-first century. We estimated the current suitable habitat and forecasted future distribution ranges of Indian pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) under climate change scenarios. We collected occurrence records of India...

Species distribution models can facilitate conservation planning and action but presume species-environment relationships are stable, which is not the case for invasive or recolonizing species only partially occupying their potential distributions. This complicates our understanding of colonization and recolonization processes and their effects on...

Co-occurrence and spatial and temporal overlap of sympatric jungle and leopard cats are influenced by habitat preferences, and interspecific competition. Understanding these factors influence is crucial for developing effective conservation strategies. We conducted a camera survey in Parsa‒Koshi Complex (PKC), Nepal during December 2022–March 2023...

Habitat selection studies facilitate assessing and predicting species distributions and habitat connectivity, but habitat selection can vary temporally and among individuals, which is often ignored. We used GPS telemetry data from 96 Gray wolves (Canis lupus) in the western Great Lakes region of the USA to assess differences in habitat selection wh...

Species interactions can influence species distributions, but mechanisms mitigating competition or facilitating positive interactions between ecologically similar species are often poorly understood. Aardwolves (Proteles cristata) and aardvarks (Orycteropus afer) are nocturnal, insectivorous mammals that co-occur in eastern and southern Africa, and...

Wide-ranging carnivores experience tradeoffs between dynamic resource availabilities and heterogeneous risks from humans, with consequences for their ecological function and conservation outcomes. Yet, research investigating these tradeoffs across large carnivore distributions is rare. We assessed how resource availability and anthropogenic risks i...

Since the 1990s, the number of lions ( Panthera leo ) has declined by about 43% across African range states. Reliable lion population estimates can contribute to effective management and inform local and international conservation policies. Though many survey methods have been used to estimate lion abundance, an assessment of their usefulness and e...

Having reproducible and transparent science‐based processes in wildlife management ensures the integrity of decision making. These processes are particularly important when establishing harvest frameworks, as guiding information in the peer‐reviewed literature is limited. We provide an example using multiple data sets, whose products guided aspects...

The global decline of terrestrial species is largely due to the degradation, loss and fragmentation of their habitats. The conversion of natural ecosystems for cropland, rangeland, forest products and human infrastructure are the primary causes of habitat deterioration. Due to the paucity of data on the past distribution of species and the scarcity...

The global decline of terrestrial species is largely due to the degradation, loss and fragmentation of their habitats. The conversion of natural ecosystems for cropland, rangeland, forest products and human infrastructure are the primary causes of habitat deterioration. Due to the paucity of data on the past distribution of species and the scarcity...

Roads within protected areas facilitate management and tourism but can also alter animal movements and foraging opportunities. Animal tracks observed along roads are also used to index species distributions and abundance. We investigated the influence of roads on lion (Panthera leo) movements within the Serengeti ecosystem of Tanzania. We used hour...

Context The forestry industry provides important goods, services and economic benefits, but timber harvest can adversely impact ecosystem services, including wildlife habitat. Timber harvest planning can integrate wildlife habitat quality through multi-objective optimization for timber harvest and wildlife habitat suitability. Objectives Our objec...

Reforestation practices have intensified in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV) of the United States of America with the aid of Farm Bill programs during the past three decades. Increases in reforested land also enhance possibilities to restore once-abundant but currently sparse species, such as eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestri...

Land use and climate change alter species distributions worldwide, and detecting and understanding how species ranges shift can facilitate conservation planning and action. Following extirpation from most of the contiguous United States, gray wolves ( Canis lupus ) have partially recolonized former range in the western Great Lakes region, but it is...

Understanding wildlife behavior, including accurate identification, processing, and interpretation of activities or cues, is important to behavioral biology and corresponding conservation strategies. We characterized the breeding activities of the critically endangered White-rumped Vulture Gyps bengalensis following a sequential pattern from courts...

Island biogeography theory states biodiversity increases with island size and decreases with distance from mainland source populations; however, the influence of other island characteristics (e.g., presence of neighboring islands) and species traits (e.g., body size) could alter expected patterns. We assessed the influence of island characteristics...

COVID-19 lockdowns in early 2020 reduced human mobility, providing an opportunity to disentangle its effects on animals from those of landscape modifications. Using GPS data, we compared movements and road avoidance of 2300 terrestrial mammals (43 species) during the lockdowns to the same period in 2019. Individual responses were variable with no c...

Discrete landscape features can concentrate animals in time and space, leading to non-random interspecific encounters. These encounters have implications for predator-prey interactions, habitat selection, intraspecific competition, and transmission of parasites and other pathogens. The lifecycle of the parasitic nematode Parelaphostrongylus tenuis...

The Himalayan goral (Naemorhedus goral) is facing threats, such as habitat degradation and human disturbances, which are increasing. To aid their conservation, it is crucial to understand the anthropogenic and ecological factors that influence Himalayan goral occurrence. We conducted a study in Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve, Nepal using remote cameras...

Co-occurring carnivore species that are phylogenetically related or of similar size, morphology, and ecological needs often reduce competition by partitioning shared resources through temporal, spatial, and dietary niche segregation via behavioral adaptations. Caracals (Caracal caracal) and jungle cats (Felis chaus) co-occur in portions of their ge...

Species distribution models (SDMs) are widely applied to understand the processes governing spatial and temporal variation in species abundance and distribution but often do not account for measurement errors such as false negatives and false positives. We describe unmarked, a package for the freely available and open‐source R software that provide...

The red panda (Ailurus fulgens) population is decreasing, with less than 10,000 individuals in the wild because of habitat destruction, fragmentation, and illegal hunting. Captive breeding has become an increasingly crucial strategy for conserving endangered species, but efforts to generate self-sustaining populations have failed despite ample reso...

Human-wildlife interactions occur where human and wildlife coexist and share common resources including food or shelter. Increasing wildlife populations within protected areas also can increase interactions with humans living adjacent to these areas, resulting in conflicts including human casualty, livestock depredation, crop damage, and property l...

Roost locations can be an important contributor to vulture conflicts with humans, but factors influencing roost-site selection at a landscape level remain largely unexplored. Further, there has been little research comparing how these factors vary between nocturnal and diurnal roosting sites. We used remote cameras to document daily variation in vu...

The decline in mammalian species diversity is increasing worldwide, with areas characterized by high human activities experiencing more prominent effects. Knowledge of spatial distributions of species and factors acting on them is necessary for effective management. We evaluated community-level occupancy of mammal species in Dhorpatan Hunting Reser...

Giant African land snails (Achatina fulica; GALS) are a highly invasive herbivore and pose serious threats to native species and that could disrupt ecosystems. Various botanical extracts have been used as molluscicides to control mollusks for pest management. We aimed to identify the effects of neem (Azadirachta indica) and titepati (Artemisia vulg...

Wolves (Canis lupus) can exert top-down pressure and shape ecological communities through the predation of ungulates and beavers (Castor spp.). Therefore, understanding wolf foraging is critical to estimating their ecosystem-level effects. Specifically, if wolves are consumers that optimize tradeoffs between the cost and benefits of prey acquisitio...

Free-ranging large carnivores are involved in human-wildlife conflicts which can result in economic costs. Understanding factors that lead to human-wildlife conflicts is important to mitigate these negative effects and facilitate human-carnivore coexistence. We used a human-American black bear (Ursus americanus) conflict database maintained by the...

Niche overlap between sympatric species can indicate the extent of interspecific competition. Sympatric competing species can exhibit spatial, temporal, and dietary adjustments to reduce competition. We investigated spatial, temporal, and dietary niche overlap of sympatric Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) and small Indian civet (Viverr...

Abstract Within optimal foraging theory animals should maximize their net energy gain while minimizing energetic costs. Energetic expenditure in wild animals is therefore key to measure proxies of fitness. Accelerometers are an effective tool to study animal movement-based energetics, but retrieval of the device is usually required and often diffic...

Habitat suitability is crucial to ensure the long-term persistence of species and can be identified based on relationships between species occurrences and underlying abiotic and biotic factors. We identified potential nesting habitat for the Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus) in Nepal using ecological niche modeling with climatic variables. W...

Introduction To sustain black bear (Ursus americanus) populations, wildlife managers should understand the coupled socio-ecological systems that influence acceptance capacity for bears. Method In a study area encompassing a portion of New York State, we spatially matched datasets from three sources: human-bear conflict reports between 2006 and 201...

Color variation is a frequent evolutionary substrate for camouflage in small mammals, but the underlying genetics and evolutionary forces that drive color variation in natural populations of large mammals are mostly unexplained. The American black bear, Ursus americanus (U. americanus), exhibits a range of colors including the cinnamon morph, which...

Animals moving through landscapes need to strike a balance between finding sufficient resources to grow and reproduce while minimizing encounters with predators. Because encounter rates are determined by the average distance over which directed motion persists, this trade-off should be apparent in individuals’ movement. Using GPS data from 1,396 in...

Large carnivores are often involved in human-wildlife conflicts which can endanger human safety and result in considerable economic costs. We used a human-American black bear (Ursus americanus) conflict database maintained by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to determine whether drought, conflicts within parks as compared...

Protected areas that restrict human activities can enhance wildlife habitat quality. Efficacy of protected areas can be improved with increased protection from illegal activities and presence of buffer protected areas that surround a core protected area. Habitat value of protected areas also can be affected by seasonal variation in anthropogenic pr...

The Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) once roamed throughout the Middle East and central India. Today there remain only an estimated 20 free-ranging individuals in central Iran and 5 in captivity.

Quantifying animal movements is necessary for answering a wide array of research questions in ecology and conservation biology. Consequently, ecologists have made considerable efforts to identify the best way to estimate an animal’s home range, and many methods of estimating home ranges have arisen over the past half century. Most of these methods...

Ungulates are key components of ecosystems due to their effects on lower trophic levels, role as prey, and value for recreational and subsistence harvests. Understanding factors that drive ungulate population dynamics can inform protection of important habitat and successful management of populations. To ascertain correlates of ungulate population...

The Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) is a myrmecophagous, nocturnal mammal species that occurs in forests, agricultural lands, and grasslands. It is critically endangered due to illegal hunting and habitat loss. Characterizing the Chinese pangolin’s habitat and diet could improve our knowledge of the conditions necessary for species persistenc...

Following federal protection in 1974, gray wolves (Canis lupus) partially recolonized former range in the western Great Lakes region, USA, yet remain absent from most of the eastern USA. Understanding potential for further recolonization requires quantifying remaining wolf habitat and habitat connectivity. We used recent snow tracking data from the...

Iran has lost two felid species (the Asiatic lion Panthera leo persica and Caspian tiger Panthera tigris virgata), and there are unsubstantiated estimates of only 550–850 free-ranging Persian leopards Panthera pardus saxicolor remaining in the country, further emphasizing the need for conservation of the Asiatic cheetah. Recovery of the Asiatic che...

Wolves (Canis lupus) can exert top-down pressure and shape ecological communities through selective predation of ungulates and beavers (Castor Canadensis). Considering their ability to shape communities through predation, understanding wolf foraging decisions is critical to predicting their ecosystem level effects. Specifically, if wolves are optim...

Color variation is a frequent evolutionary substrate for camouflage in small mammals but the underlying genetics and evolutionary forces that drive color variation in natural populations of large mammals are mostly unexplained. The American black bear, Ursus americanus , exhibits a range of colors including the cinnamon morph which has a similar co...

Using existing data can be a reliable and cost-effective way to predict species distributions, and particularly useful for recovering or expanding species. We developed a current gray wolf ( Canis lupus ) distribution model for the western Great Lakes region, USA, and evaluated the spatial transferability of single-state models to the region. This...

Small carnivores – here defined as members of the mammalian Order Carnivora with a body mass < 21.5 kg – occur worldwide, including in Oceania, following introductions. They are represented by 210 to 282 species, which corresponds to around 90% of terrestrial carnivores globally. Some species are endemic to one or two countries (sometimes only isla...