Group density, disease, and season shape territory size and overlap of social carnivores

1. The spatial organization of a population can influence the spread of information, behaviour, and pathogens. Territory size and territory overlap, components of spatial organization, provide key information as these metrics may be indicators of habitat quality, resource dispersion, contact rates, and environmental risk (e.g., indirectly transmitted pathogens). Furthermore, sociality and behaviour can also shape space use, and subsequently, how space use and habitat quality together impact demography.

2. Our study aims to identify factors shaping the spatial organization of wildlife populations and assess the impact of epizootics on space use. We also use network analysis to describe spatial organization and connectivity of social groups.

3. Here, we assessed the seasonal spatial organization of Serengeti lions and Yellowstone wolves at the group level. We examine the factors predicting mean territory size and mean territory overlap for each population using generalized additive ...