Kananaskis/Willmore Camera and Landcover Data

Anthropogenic landscape change is a leading driver of biodiversity loss. Preceding dramatic changes such as wildlife population declines and range shifts, more subtle responses may signal impending larger-scale change. For example, disturbance-induced shifts to species’ activity patterns may disrupt temporal niche partitioning along the 24-h time axis, compromising community structure via altered competitive interactions. We investigated the impacts of human landscape disturbance on species’ activity patterns and temporal niche partitioning in the Canadian Rocky Mountain carnivore guild using camera trap images collected across two regions encompassing a wide gradient of human footprint. Applying kernel density estimation techniques, we tested for carnivore species’ activity shifts 1) between a low versus high disturbance landscape, and 2) in relation to site-scale disturbance. To test our hypothesis that human disturbance impacts species’ temporal niche partitioning, we modelled activi...