Data from: Sex-specific resource strategies mediate home range sizes of an endangered carnivore across multiple scales

Home ranges reflect a trade-off between the costs and benefits associated
with acquiring resources and can impact many ecological
processes. These intrinsic and extrinsic factors shape how
individuals form home ranges, leading to strategies such as maximizing
resources across a broader area (resource maximization) or minimizing
space use while still meeting energetic and reproductive needs (area
minimization). Understanding drivers of spatiotemporal variation in home
range size is essential for identifying landscape constraints on
populations in rapidly changing systems. Despite this, few studies have
concurrently examined how sex-specific home range strategies respond to
environmental heterogeneity across multiple spatial and temporal scales.
We estimated home ranges across multiple spatiotemporal scales and
evaluated the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic drivers on sex-specific
home range size for the federally endangered ocelot (Leopardus pardalis)
in the two remaining populations in the USA. We used GPS telemetry data
from 34 individuals (22 M, 12 F) collected across 12 years to estimate
monthly, seasonal, and half-year autocorrelated kernel density estimates
of home ranges. We found that male home ranges were ~3x times larger than
those of females, and both sexes displayed variation in home range size
within a year. Males employed a resource maximization strategy during
reproductive periods while females constrained their home ranges in an
area-minimizing approach, likely increasing in size to match the demands
of reproduction. Vegetation heterogeneity was related to smaller home
range size and highlighted the importance of habitat complexity and
associated prey diversity to provide more resources in a given
area. Our data suggest that home range variation depends on
spatial scale and annual changes in life history that respond to dynamic
environmental conditions and social interactions. Understanding the
drivers of sex-specific home range size across space and time—especially
in the context of habitat loss, shifting climate patterns, and changing
resource productivity—can help identify key targets related to management
and habitat restoration for small and declining populations.