Katherine A. Zeller

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Researcher at US Forest Service

Aim There is enormous interest in applying connectivity modelling to resistance surfaces for identifying corridors for conservation action. However, the multiple analytical approaches used to estimate resistance surfaces and predict connectivity across resistance surfaces have not been rigorously compared, and it is unclear what methods provide the...

ContextThe definition of the geospatial landscape is the underlying basis for species-habitat models, yet sensitivity of habitat use inference, predicted probability surfaces, and connectivity models to landscape definition has received little attention. Objectives We evaluated the sensitivity of resource selection and connectivity models to four l...

Context GPS telemetry collars and their ability to acquire accurate and consistently frequent locations have increased the use of step selection functions (SSFs) and path selection functions (PathSFs) for studying animal movement and estimating resistance. However, previously published SSFs and PathSFs often do not accommodate multiple scales or mu...

Context Scale is the lens that focuses ecological relationships. Organisms select habitat at multiple hierarchical levels and at different spatial and/or temporal scales within each level. Failure to properly address scale dependence can result in incorrect inferences in multi-scale habitat selection modeling studies. Objectives Our goals in this r...

Resistance surfaces are often used to fill gaps in our knowledge surrounding animal movement and are frequently the basis for modeling connectivity associated with conservation initiatives. However, the methods for quantifying resistance surfaces are varied and there is no general consensus on the appropriate choice of environmental data or analyti...

Context Consistent with the diversity-stability hypothesis, high wildlife diversity has been associated with increased resilience and stability of ecosystem services and functions. Nevertheless, ecological non-stationarity associated with climate change challenges the concept of stability. Furthermore, ambiguity surrounding appropriate diversity me...

Wolverine distribution contracted along the southern periphery of its range in North America during the 19th and 20th centuries due primarily to human influences. This history, along with low densities, sensitivity to climate change, and concerns about connectivity among fragmented habitats spurred the recent US federal listing of threatened status...

Conservation of species' mobility and ecological integrity is necessary for the productivity of the sage-brush biome in the western United States. Building on the recently developed Sagebrush Conservation Design (SCD) that mapped sagebrush ecological integrity (SEI)-defined as the higher cover of sagebrush and perennial grass and reduced threats du...

Providing outdoor recreational opportunities to people and protecting wildlife are dual goals of many land managers. However, recreation is associated with negative effects on wildlife, ranging from increased stress hormones to shifts in habitat use lowered reproductive success. Noise from recreational activities can be far reaching and have simila...

Context Resource selection functions are powerful tools for predicting habitat selection of animals. Recently, machine-learning methods such as random forest have gained popularity for predicting habitat selection due to their flexibility and strong predictive performance. Objectives We tested two methods for predicting continental-scale, second-o...

Context Species-agnostic connectivity models are often used to inform management over broad spatial scales. The four main approaches to species-agnostic models parameterize resistance to movement based on naturalness, structural features, climate, or geodiversity variables. Though all four of these factors simultaneously affect species movement and...

Context Preserving functional connectivity is a conservation priority to secure the long-term viability of geographically dispersed subpopulations, such as the jaguar (Panthera onca) populations in Central America. However, managing connectivity in this region is limited due to the scarcity of local assessments of the connectivity between existing...

Aim Managers are increasingly facing an uncertain future given changing climates and ecological trajectories. The interacting effects of climate, natural disturbance, and management actions complicate future projections, and there is a need for approaches that integrate these factors—especially for predicting future vegetation and species richness....

The colonization of suitable yet unoccupied habitat due to natural dispersal or human introduction can benefit recovery of threatened species. Predicting habitat suitability and conflict potential of colonization areas can facilitate conservation planning. Planning for reintroduction of gray wolves (Canis lupus) to the US state of Colorado is under...

Understanding how human infrastructure and other landscape attributes affect genetic differentiation in animals is an important step for identifying and maintaining dispersal corridors for these species. We built upon recent advances in the field of landscape genetics by using an individual-based and multiscale approach to predict landscape-level g...

Conservation and management of wide-ranging carnivores like cougars (Puma concolor), which occur across human-altered landscapes can benefit from an in-depth understanding of their genetic status. Here, we apply the largest collection of multi-locus genotypes currently available for cougars (n = 1,903) to provide a comprehensive assessment of genet...

Context Identifying core habitat areas and corridors is a first step to ensuring suitable areas are available to support movement and gene flow. The pygmy rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis) is a species of concern and a sagebrush obligate of the arid Great Basin, yet a habitat network of core areas and corridors for this species has not been assessed....

Species across the planet are shifting their ranges to track suitable climate conditions in response to climate change. Given that protected areas have higher quality habitat and often harbor higher levels of biodiversity compared to unprotected lands, it is often assumed that protected areas can serve as steppingstones for species undergoing clima...

Context Maintenance of connectivity is a commonly recommended strategy for species management and conservation as habitat loss and fragmentation continues. Therefore, functional connectivity modeling is needed for species over large geographic areas. However, sex-specific functional connectivity is rarely considered, even though the results of such...

Context Conservation scientists recommend maintaining and restoring ecological connectivity to sustain biodiversity in the face of land-use and climate change. Alternative connectivity assessments conducted at multiple spatial scales are needed to understand consequences of varying assumptions and for use in multi-scale conservation planning. Obje...

Protected areas are essential to conserving biodiversity, yet changing climatic conditions challenge their efficacy. For example, novel and disappearing climates within the protected area network indicate that extant species may not have suitable climate in protected areas in the future. Further, potential transboundary range shifts, those that inv...

Aims In the sagebrush ecosystems of the western United States, identifying and enhancing habitat for large ungulates has become an increased priority for many management agencies, as indicated by Department of Interior Secretarial Order 3362. Estimating and understanding current and future habitat suitability and connectivity is important for succe...

Until fairly recently, the majority of landscape connectivity analyses have considered connectivity as a static landscape feature, despite the widespread recognition that landscapes and the abiotic and biotic processes that influence them are dynamic [...]

The encroachment of pinyon-juniper woodlands into sagebrush habitat in the Great Basin Ecoregion of the western USA, represents a potential source of habitat degradation for sagebrush-associated wildlife species. To restore sagebrush habitat, managers are conducting large-scale conifer removal efforts within the Great Basin, particularly within Gre...

Aim Populations of cold‐adapted species at the trailing edges of geographic ranges are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change from the combination of exposure to warm temperatures and high sensitivity to heat. Many of these species are predicted to decline under future climate scenarios, but they could persist if they can...

Landscape connectivity is increasingly promoted as a conservation tool to combat the negative effects of habitat loss, fragmentation, and climate change. Given its importance as a key conservation strategy, connectivity science is a rapidly growing discipline. However, most landscape connectivity models consider connectivity for only a single snaps...

A central tenet of landscape conservation planning is that natural communities can be supported by a connected landscape network that supports many species and habitat types. However, as the planning environment, ecological conditions, and risks and stressors change over time, the areas needed to support landscape connectivity may also shift. We de...

ContextRoads have several negative effects on large mammals including restricting movements, isolating populations, and mortality due to vehicle collisions. Where large mammals regularly cross roads, driver safety is also a concern. Wildlife road crossing structures are often proposed to mitigate the negative effects on wildlife and human safety. H...

Connectivity and wildlife corridors are often key components to successful conservation and management plans. Connectivity for wildlife is typically modeled in a static environment that reflects a single snapshot in time. However, it has been shown that, when compared with dynamic connectivity models, static models can underestimate connectivity an...

Roads can result in negative effects on wildlife including habitat loss, behavioral avoidance, reduced survival, reproduction and gene flow. These road effects are especially pronounced for large mammals given their large home‐range requirements and low reproductive rates. To counteract these negative effects, road mitigation measures, such as unde...

Habitat loss and fragmentation are key drivers of biodiversity loss. However, they are usually confounded, making it difficult to separate fragmentation effects from those of habitat loss. In addition, it has been shown that often fragmentation negatively affects biodiversity only below a certain threshold of habitat amount. We investigated the sep...

Background: With the growth and expansion of human development, large mammals will increasingly encounter humans, elevating the likelihood of human-wildlife conflicts. Understanding the behavior and movement of large mammals, particularly around human development, is important for crafting effective conservation and management plans for these spec...

Wildlife–vehicle collisions are a human safety issue and may negatively impact wildlife populations. Most wildlife–vehicle collision studies predict high-risk road segments using only collision data. However, these data lack biologically relevant information such as wildlife population densities and successful road-crossing locations. We overcome t...

Wildlife populations occurring at the edge of their range boundaries are thought to be the most sensitive to climate change due to temperatures being at or near the limit of a species’ thermal envelope. Moose (Alces americanus) are a cold adapted species that are showing population declines in some portions of the southern edge of their range. Howe...

Broad scale population estimates of declining species are desired for conservation efforts. However, for many secretive species including large carnivores, such estimates are often difficult. Based on published density estimates obtained through camera trapping , presence/absence data, and globally available predictive variables derived from satell...

Candidate predictive variables used in the spatial analysis. (DOCX)

1. Evaluating range-wide habitat use by a target species requires information on species occurrence over broad geographic regions, a process made difficult by species rarity, large spatiotemporal sampling domains, and imperfect detection. We address these challenges in an assessment of habitat use for jaguars (Panthera onca) outside protected areas...

The importance of examining multiple hierarchical levels when modeling resource use for wildlife has been acknowledged for decades. Multi-level resource selection functions have recently been promoted as a method to synthesize resource use across nested organizational levels into a single predictive surface. Analyzing multiple scales of selection w...

Road networks and the disturbance associated with vehicle traffic alter animal behavior, movements, and habitat selection. The response of moose (Alces americanus) to roads has been documented in relatively rural areas, but less is known about moose response to roads in more highly roaded landscapes. We examined road‐crossing frequencies and habita...

The impact of extensive changes in land use and climate on species has led to an increasing focus on large-scale conservation planning. However, these plans are often static conservation prescriptions set against a backdrop of rapidly changing environments, which suggests that large-scale information on threats can improve the func-tionality of pla...

Umbrella species are employed as conservation short- cuts for the design of reserves or reserve networks. However, empirical data on the effectiveness of umbrellas is equivocal, which has prevented more widespread application of this conservation strategy. We perform a novel, large- scale evaluation of umbrella species by assessing the potential um...

Mantel-based tests have been the primary analytical methods for understanding how landscape features influence observed spatial genetic structure. Simulation studies examining Mantel-based approaches have highlighted major challenges associated with the use of such tests and fueled debate on when the Mantel test is appropriate for landscape genetic...

Appendix S14. R and Python code for Mantel‐based test simulation analysis.

Appendix S1. Example of the four landscape clusters. Appendix S2. Generation time for populations to reach spatial genetic equilibrium across our true resistance model for Replicate 1. Appendix S3. Simulated replications of resistance models organized by cluster, showing cell‐wise correlations of true versus competing resistance models (Pearson's...

Umbrella species are employed as conservation short-cuts for the design of reserves or reserve networks. However, empirical data on the effectiveness of umbrellas is equivocal, which has prevented more widespread application of this conservation strategy. We perform a novel large-scale evaluation of umbrella species by assessing the potential umbre...

Estimating landscape resistance to animal movement is the foundation for connectivity modeling, and resource selection functions based on point data are commonly used to empirically estimate resistance. In this study, we used GPS data points acquired at 5-min intervals from radiocollared pumas in southern California to model context-dependent point...

The jaguar (Panthera onca) is the largest cat in the New World and faces threatsincluding direct persecution, habitat loss, and decimation of prey populations. Typically,conservation approaches focus on individual sites and do not account for larger landscapedynamics over the range of the jaguar. Furthermore, conservation programs tend toremain int...

The goal of this chapter is to describe the state of the art in quantitative corridor and connectivity modelling. It reviews several critical issues in modelling, and provides expert guidance and examples to help practitioners implement effective programmes to preserve, enhance or create connectivity among wildlife populations. It first reviews the...

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide important tools for developing comprehensive and effective conservation strategies throughout the entire range of a species. Range-wide conservation strategies have typically used GIS to identify and prioritize populations across a species' distribution. We propose the addition of corridors to these rang...

Corridors are critical elements in the long-term conservation of wide-ranging species like the jaguar (Panthera onca). Jaguar corridors across the range of the species were initially identified using a GIS-based least-cost corridor model. However, due to inherent errors in remotely sensed data and model uncertainties, these corridors warrant field...

Large, wide-ranging carnivores face greater threats and more persistent declines than most other mammal species. An important conservation tool for these carnivores has been range-wide priority-setting exercises that have helped identify critical threats and key populations. However, such exercises often fail to identify functional movement corrido...