Data for: At a fine scale, hardwood patches support wildlife diversity in longleaf pine woodlands

Restoring and maintaining biodiversity in a changing world is increasingly
challenging due to the competing needs of species for suitable space and
resources. One ecosystem that has seen considerable anthropogenic changes
in extent and structure is the longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) ecosystem.
Understanding how wildlife responds to restoration is important to
informing forest restoration and conservation. We monitored game birds and
mid-large-sized mammal occupancy in and around hardwood patches embedded
within a longleaf pine woodland at The Jones Center at Ichauway in Newton,
GA. We found that 11 species use the transition zone between the longleaf
pine and hardwood hammocks. Gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis),
Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana), nine-banded armadillos (Dasypus
novemcinctus) occupancy increased along the gradient while and fox
squirrel (Sciurus niger) declined. Our results suggest that oak patches
and transitional zones are important to maintaining biodiversity within
the longleaf pine ecosystem.