This week’s lab, Cat Tracker, used animal tracking data from http://www.movebank.org. The data is retrieved from GPS devices that are attached to cats. The GPS tracker records all the places the cat visits, and the data is then uploaded onto the data bank. After uploading onto the data bank, it can be opened in Google Earth and used to find the area of the cats home range. An animal’s home range is where an animal travels through familiar places to obtain food, seek shelter, or find mates. We analyzed domestic cats from the U.S.A, New Zealand, and Australia to test the average number of hectares traveled by cats from these different countries. Each person from our group chose fifteen cats from each of the three countries on to collect data from to find the mean of each group. This data was used for further analysis seen below.
1.What were the average home ranges for cats in each of the countries? Make a bar graph of the average home ranges by country.
The average home range for cats in the United States was 7.84 hectares. For visualization, one hectare equals about the size of ½ of a football field. The standard error for the United States was the smallest out of the data sets, at 0.957. This represents the most accurate reflection of the dataset. The average home range for cats in New Zealand was 5.37 hectares. This dataset included the largest home range out of all three countries at 39 hectares. The cat with this home range lived in the suburbs, but had made its way into the mountains. The average home range for cats in Australia was 4.88 hectares. The data from Australia had the smallest average. One reason for this could be that we unknowingly selected cats with smaller ranges. Another reason for this could be that 85% of Australians live in cities or urban areas, and the majority of Australia is uninhabitable deserts. Lack of citizens in rural areas may have caused a lack of cats with larger home ranges. This data can be seen represented in Figure 1.
2. Based on your observations in Google Earth, what types of habitats were in the cats’ home range?
Based on the observations from google earth, the types of habitats in the cats’ home range were mostly rural, suburban areas with more open space for the cats to travel. The cats’ home range appeared to be bigger when the area was more urban, and more spacious for the cats to hunt and explore.
3. How did the cat’s location (urban, rural) influence it’s use of the landscape?
Cats that were located in urban areas seemed to frequent areas that had some type of cover. This includes being located near homes and other buildings. Some of the cats were located under trees and bushes, as well. Many of the urban cats used streets and sidewalks to move from place to place, and it was not as common to see cats travel through backyards or other grassy areas. The cats in rural areas spent most of their time near trees and other types of vegetation which is similar to the cats from urban areas. Since the cats from rural areas had greater home ranges, they may have been searching for buildings or homes to use as a cover.
4. What abiotic and biotic factors might influence the size of the cats’ home range?
Abiotic factors that might influence the size of the cats’ home range could be the area in which the cat lives and travels, which could be a city versus a suburb, areas that contain large buildings and bustling streetways, and areas that are more remote and less busy. Biotic factors that could affect a cats’ home range could be other large animals that they encounter while roaming different areas. These predatory animals could be a large determinate in the areas they choose to travel through.
5. Based on the cats’ home ranges in your data set, what might that suggest about cats’ potential impact on local biodiversity?
Based on the home range data collected, it might suggest that house cats for example, more than likely will not have an overall effect on local biodiversity. On the other hand, cat species like federal cats, may have a bigger impact on other small animals in the area such as birds.
6. You are an urban developer interested in designing a city safe for both cats and local biodiversity. Based on the cat’s home ranges, what landscape changes might you implement to accommodate cat’s roaming behavior while protecting local wildlife?
Cats are one of the biggest threats to many local wildlife species. The life of animals, like rabbits, birds, moles, mice, and rats, are highly threatened by cats that are free-range and domesticated. Adding trees, bushes, and other plants that can contribute to dense vegetation gives birds cover to hide from predators. This technique would be most useful in suburban areas because cats do not roam great distances from their home, and the cats would most likely get discouraged due to the lack of birds and increase of plants. The tracked cats from rural areas had greater home ranges, so adding more vegetation to a backyard would probably not stop these animals from hunting local wildlife. Most cats can jump as high as six feet, so building fences higher than this will allow for cats to be outdoors without posing a threat to wildlife on the opposite side.
Find a peer review article about the ecological role of cats. Summarize the study’s objectives and overall findings. How do the study findings compare to your observations of the cat tracker data? Be sure to make a meaningful connection. If you can’t do so, then you should find another research article.
In the study, Home Range, Habitat Use, and Activity Patterns of Free-Roaming Domestic Cats discusses the researchers tested cats using radio-telemetry and collars. Similar to the data we looked at, this study compared home range size and activity patterns, but in one specific area, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, rather than three broad areas. A major aspect of the study was comparing the activity of owned cats vs. unowned cats. The study found the owned cats had smaller home ranges than unowned cats. This is comparable to our findings that cats in urban areas had smaller home ranges than rural cats. It is likely that some of the rural cats from our data were unowned. The study also found that cats shifted their behavior and activity in regards to prey availability. Our data showed that cats frequented bushes, trees, and other natural areas; it can be assumed that this is due to a cat’s need for prey.
Reference: HORN, J., MATEUS-PINILLA, N., WARNER, R., & HESKE, E. (2011). Home Range, Habitat Use, and Activity Patterns of Free-Roaming Domestic Cats. The Journal of Wildlife Management,75(5), 1177-1185. Retrieved April 6, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/41418151.
The introduction was written by Jayla Watkins. Questions 2, 4, and 5 were answered by Watkins. Question 1, 3, and 6 were answered by Nia Alston. The summary of the peer reviewed article was written by Alston. The graphs were created by Alston and Watkins, collaboratively.
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