Data to accompany the paper ‘Redundancy analysis reveals complex den use patterns by eastern spotted skunks, a conditional specialist’, Ecosphere, In press, 2021.

<div><p>Wildlife
managers tasked with understanding habitat and resource selection at the
population level attempt to characterize patterns in nature that aid and inform
conservation. Resource selection functions (RSF), such as discrete choice
analyses, are the standard convention to characterize the effects of habitat
attributes on resource selection patterns. RSF are invaluable tools for in
wildlife management and conservation and have proven successful in numerous
studies. However, the analysis of small datasets using RSF becomes problematic
when attempting to account for for complex sources of variation and inclusion
of factors such as weather or intrinsic variation on target species’ response
may produce models with poor predictive ability. We compared the application of
generalized linear mixed modeling (GLMM) and redundancy analysis (RDA) on
Appalachian spotted skunk (Spilogale putorius putorius) den selection data at
four study sites within national forest and surrounding private lands in the
Appalachian Mountains of western Virginia and northeastern West Virginia. We
assessed the need for the inclusion of alternative sources of variation, (i.e.,
weather conditions and individual intrinsic variation) in addition to standard
habitat attributes to better identify sources of variation in den selection.
The RDA elucidated complex and opposing relationships whereby den type use was
based on reproductive status or weather condition, that were not evident in the
GLMM model that relied solely on habitat measures. Our results demonstrate the
importance of examining resource selection data using multivariate techniques
in addition to conventional discrete choice analyses to better understand
intricate habitat–species relationships, especially for small data sets.
Further, from our analyses, we propose that spotted skunks are neither a true
generalist nor specialist species. We introduce and define the term
‘conditional specialist’ to represent a species that is conditionally selective
of a given resource in response to one or more current environmental or
intrinsic conditions. </p><br></div>