🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This study modeled a small puma population in the Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles, integrating demography, genetics, and landscape connectivity to estimate extinction risk for cats hemmed in b…

Benson, J.F., Mahoney, P.J., Sikich, J.A., Serieys, L.E.K., Pollinger, J.P., Ernest, H.B., Riley, S.P.D. · Proceedings of the Royal Society B · 2016

Building on earlier work, this study examined how urbanization-driven isolation can drive small puma populations in the Santa Monica and Santa Ana Mountains into an extinction vortex, where inbreeding…

Benson, J.F., Mahoney, P.J., Vickers, T.W., Sikich, J.A., Beier, P., Riley, S.P.D., Ernest, H.B., Boyce, W.M. · Ecological Applications · 2019

This study examined how a guild of mammalian carnivores responds to habitat fragmentation in southern California, finding that species differ markedly in their sensitivity to isolation and patch size,…

Crooks, K.R. · Conservation Biology · 2002

Circuit theory, which models animal movement as electrical current flowing across a resistance surface, has become a standard tool for mapping connectivity for wide-ranging cats. This overview surveys…

In western North America, puma populations track deer and other ungulate prey whose abundance and condition fluctuate with drought. This overview surveys how dry years reduce forage, lower prey recrui…

Drought intensifies competition between people and predators for scarce water, forage, and livestock, often heightening human-wildlife conflict. This overview surveys how dry periods push cats toward…

The wildland-urban interface, where development meets wildland vegetation, is expanding and is the zone where climate-driven fire most directly intersects with cat populations like urban-edge pumas an…

Small, isolated cat populations risk inbreeding depression, and genetic rescue, introducing individuals from other populations, has been used to counter it. This overview surveys the concept and its f…

Landscape genetics links genetic patterns to the features of the terrain between populations, a toolkit central to studying fragmentation in cats. This overview surveys the methods, from microsatellit…

Pumas were extirpated from much of eastern North America but persist and expand in the west, prompting study of where suitable habitat exists and how the species might recolonize. This overview survey…

Pumas in fire-prone California navigate landscapes repeatedly shaped by wildfire, and tracking studies examine how they respond to burns. This overview surveys research on how pumas move during and af…

Roads affect cats through direct mortality and through the barrier effect that fragments populations, a central theme in carnivore conservation. This overview surveys research quantifying how highways…

Across the western United States, puma populations range from large and connected to small and isolated, and genetics reveals how habitat configuration creates source and sink dynamics. This overview…

Wildlife overpasses and underpasses are increasingly used to reconnect carnivore populations split by highways, with high-profile projects designed for pumas. This overview surveys the evidence that c…