Effectively managing apex predators in human-modified landscapes poses considerable challenges. Habitat fragmentation disperses resources across wider expanses and undermines the ability of apex predators to reach isolated habitat patches as they traverse multi-tenured landscapes comprising unsuitable habitat. Understanding a species response to landscape configuration is key to informing effective management strategies, particularly for threatened, mobile and ecologically important species like apex predators. Here we use GPS tracking data collected from 37 powerful owls (Ninox strenua), an Australian threatened apex predator that occurs across the urban-agricultural-forest gradient, to investigate how landscape characteristics influence their spatial and movement behaviour. We demonstrate that as habitat fragmentation increases, the spatial requirements of powerful owls expand, their home-range shape becomes more intricate and individuals travel further each night, significantly adjusting their movement behaviours and spatial configurations to connect remaining habitat. Landscapes with unified and connected habitats, on the other hand, have smaller spatial requirements, likely due to greater habitat availability that minimises competition for essential resources. This facilitates the establishment of smaller home-ranges and consequently, the occurrence of more territories. Interestingly, landscape characteristics did not influence sequential nightly visitation behaviour, suggesting that powerful owls across all landscape types visit different portions of their home-range each night to exert an unpredictable hunting strategy regardless of local landscape conditions. Our research highlights the importance of integrating the influence of local landscape features and visitation behaviours into decision-making processes. This integration is crucial for informing effective conservation strategies aimed at supporting apex predator survival in disturbed landscapes.

中文翻译：

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飞往何处？景观对受威胁顶级捕食者的运动和空间生态的影响


在人类改造的景观中有效管理顶级捕食者带来了相当大的挑战。栖息地碎片化将资源分散到更广阔的土地上，并削弱了顶级捕食者在穿越构成不适宜栖息地的多层景观时到达孤立栖息地的能力。了解物种对景观配置的反应是制定有效管理策略的关键，特别是对于受威胁、移动和具有重要生态意义的物种，如顶级捕食者。在这里，我们使用从 37 只强大的猫头鹰 （Ninox strenua） 收集的 GPS 跟踪数据，这是一种澳大利亚受威胁的顶级捕食者，出现在城市-农业-森林梯度中，以研究景观特征如何影响它们的空间和运动行为。我们证明，随着栖息地碎片化的增加，强大的猫头鹰的空间需求扩大，它们的栖息地形状变得更加复杂，个体每晚旅行得更远，显着调整它们的运动行为和空间配置以连接剩余的栖息地。另一方面，具有统一和连通栖息地的景观具有较小的空间要求，这可能是由于栖息地的可用性更高，从而最大限度地减少了对基本资源的竞争。这有利于建立更小的栖息地，从而产生更多的领土。有趣的是，景观特征并不影响连续的夜间访问行为，这表明无论当地景观条件如何，所有景观类型的强大猫头鹰每晚都会访问其栖息地的不同部分，以施加不可预测的狩猎策略。 我们的研究强调了将当地景观特征和访问行为的影响纳入决策过程的重要性。这种整合对于制定有效的保护策略至关重要，这些策略旨在支持顶级捕食者在受干扰的景观中生存。