Browsing by Subject "habitat"

In my Master’s Thesis I researched young lynxes ́ (Lynx lynx) use of habitat during dispersal. When analysing different research materials, I found out what kind of habitats and topography young lynxes use during their dispersal. There haven ́t been many researchs in this area in Finland before, therefore this research is providing new information to the subject. The Natural Resources Institute in Finland provided the tracking materials for the research. In this work I have three research questions. 1.) Does different habitat types affect to dispersal and does the use of habitat types vary between male and female? 2.) Does topography affect to dispersal and how does the topography classes are divided between male and female? 3.) Which sex disperses further? The studied area was Southern Finland, below the city of Jyväskylä. My research material contained nine male and seven female lynxes. The material was collected during years 2008 – 2014. Lynxes in the study had a GPS -collar, enabling position tracking. The gathered positioning points were transferred to ArcGIS 10.3.1 geographic program. Besides positioning points, the Corine Land Cover -2012 habitat map and DEM (Digital elevation model) topography were used in the study. I classified Corine materials to eight different categories and DEM materials set to twenty different categories. I converted the lynxes ́ positioning points into trails. The trail zone was set to four kilometres. Also, an individual zone with a radius of ten meters was set for each positioning point. When analysing these zones, I was able to find out what kind of habitats and topography lynxes use during dispersal. The length of the dispersal was calculated in two ways: A1-B1 the length of the dispersal was the distance between the start and end points. A2-B2 the length of the dispersal was the total length between all positioning points. I used the Mann Whitney -U test for the statistic testing. The results of this study show that male and female lynxes ́ use of habitats in the research area was divided evenly. Two classes showed statistically significant results: females favour peatlands in four kilometers dispersal trail zone. In ten meters positioning point zone females favour more coniferous forest. There were no special characteristics in males ́ use of habitats. The results of composition analyze show that lynxes favour mixed- and coniferous forests and fields. Selection of habitats wasn’t random. There were no difference in the use of topography between males and females, although one topography class was statistically significant. Mainly lynxes favour higher topography. The results show that males disperse further than females. There was, however, one female, whose dispersal was abnormally longer when compared to the other females. There was a strong positive correlation between the total length of the dispersal and the time used for the dispersal Generally there was no difference between the linearity of the dispersal trails of males and females. The results of this Master’s Thesis are used in the national lynx research project.