DOI: 10.5061/dryad.5qfttdzfc
title: Snowshoe hare habitat use and survival

description: Wildlife populations near the periphery of a species’ range are vulnerable
 to changes in habitat conditions and climate. However, habitat management
 and maintenance can help with the persistence of these susceptible
 populations. Snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) populations near the
 southern extent of their range are at risk of extirpation because of
 changing winter conditions, coupled with reduced early-successional
 habitat. Prescribed fire has been used to restore and maintain
 early-successional habitat in the southern range of snowshoe hares, but
 previous research suggests that burned areas might initially be unsuitable
 for hares. Therefore, more information is needed on the time required for
 hares to start using an area post-burning, and the long-term effects of
 prescribed fire on hare survival. We studied snowshoe hare habitat use and
 survival in northeastern Pennsylvania, where prescribed fire has been used
 for scrub oak barrens restoration. We used GPS locations from 70 hares and
 used resource selection functions to analyze hare selection for burned
 habitats of varying ages (0–12 years post-burn) and known-fate survival
 models to evaluate the effects of burning on survival. Hares started using
 burned areas ≥ 7 years post-burning but avoided areas burned 0–6 years
 prior. In addition, hare survival was positively associated with the
 amount of old burn habitat (≥ 7 years post-burn) used by an individual.
 Our results indicate that prescribed burning can be beneficial for hares,
 but that a time lag of ≥ 7 years is necessary for positive responses to
 occur. Planning burns within a mosaic of unburned areas could allow hares
 to persist during the 0–6 years post-burn when areas are not suitable for
 hares, which in turn could benefit the persistence of southern snowshoe
 hare populations. Collectively, our results highlight the importance of
 long-term demographic monitoring to understand wildlife population
 responses to management actions.
description: # Snowshoe hare habitat use and survival
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5qfttdzfc](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5qfttdzfc) Data associated with Gigliotti, L.C., E.S. Boyd, and D.R. Diefenbach. Delayed positive responses of snowshoe hares to prescribed burning in a fire-adapted ecosystem. *Animal Conservation*. ## Description of the data and file structure 1\. Resource selection functions used/available data ("RSF_hare_data.csv")   a. The columns of the files include:\          i. hare_id: Unique individual animal ID\          ii. time_burned: Categorical variable indicating time-since-burn in years. Values include NB indicating not burned during the 50 years prior to this study, and 0-12 indicated years that an area was burned prior. \        iii. season_year: Categorical variable including the season (Summer or Winter) and year corresponding to a given point\        iv. season2: Binary variable indicating the season (summer or winter) corresponding to a given point\         v. used: Binary variable indicating if it is a used (1) or available (0) point. 2\. Hare survival data ("Hare_survival_input_final.csv")   a. The file is saved as a text file and formatted for use with rmark R package, which is an interface for program MARK.    b. The columns of the files include:\            i. ch: The capture history of an individual animal. See MARK documentation for information on capture histories\           ii. Percent_NB: Proportion of an individual's GPS locations occurring in Not Burned (NB) areas\          iii. Percent_0: Proportion of an individual's GPS locations occurring in Year-0 burn areas\          iv. Percent_n: Proportion of an individual's GPS locations occurring in "new burn"(&lt; 7 years post-burn) areas\           v. Percent_o: Proportion of an individual's GPS locations occurring in "old burn" (7+ years post-burn) areas\          vi. Leaf1 - Leaf 12: Binary variable indicating if a given month was in the leaf-on season (1; April-Sept) or leaf-off (0; Oct - March) season ## Sharing/Access information Please contact the PA Game Commission/Emily Boyd (eboyd.pa.gov) for more information about the data.