🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Carbone and Gittleman derived a simple, general rule linking carnivore population density to the productivity of the prey base, showing across species that roughly the same amount of prey biomass supp…

Carbone, C. & Gittleman, J.L. · Science · 2002

This influential study used feline immunodeficiency virus as a fast-evolving genetic marker to reconstruct the population history of its puma hosts in the American West. Because the virus mutates far…

R. Biek, A. J. Drummond, M. Poss · Science · 2006

Using GPS telemetry and field observation, Elbroch and colleagues documented that pumas, long considered strictly solitary, engage in structured social interactions, including tolerated food sharing a…

L. Mark Elbroch, Michael Levy, Mark Lubell, Howard Quigley, Anthony Caragiulo · Science Advances · 2017

This pioneering study in the Idaho Primitive Area provided the first rigorous picture of mountain lion predation on wild ungulates, based on years of tracking pumas in snow and examining kills. It doc…

Hornocker, M. G. · Wildlife Monographs · 1970

This study established a striking association between exposure to anticoagulant rodenticides and severe notoedric mange in bobcats and mountain lions across urban southern California. Necropsies and t…

Riley SPD, Bromley C, Poppenga RH, Uzal FA, Whited L, Sauvajot RM · Journal of Wildlife Management · 2007

Zimmermann, Walpole, and Leader-Williams surveyed cattle ranchers across the Brazilian Pantanal to understand attitudes toward jaguars and pumas amid livestock depredation. They found that ranchers fr…

Alexandra Zimmermann, Matthew J. Walpole, Nigel Leader-Williams · Oryx · 2005

This study documented the genetic and physiological crisis of the Florida panther, a puma population isolated and reduced to a few dozen animals in southern Florida. The authors reported very low gene…

Melody E. Roelke, Janice S. Martenson, Stephen J. O'Brien · Current Biology · 1993

Beier compiled and analysed records of cougar (puma) attacks on people across the United States and Canada through the twentieth century, providing the first systematic quantification of a rare but fe…

Paul Beier · Wildlife Society Bulletin · 1991

This population-viability analysis integrated demographic data, genetic measures and landscape connectivity for the small puma population isolated in the Santa Monica Mountains within metropolitan Los…

Benson JF, Mahoney PJ, Sikich JA, Serieys LEK, Pollinger JP, Ernest HB, Riley SPD · Proceedings of the Royal Society B · 2016

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

Logan and Sweanor's monograph reports a decade-long study of pumas in New Mexico's San Andres Mountains, one of the most thorough investigations of cougar population and predation ecology. It document…

Logan, K.A. & Sweanor, L.L. · Island Press · 2001

This early conservation-planning study modelled how much habitat and what corridor configuration cougars need to persist in fragmenting southern California landscapes. By analysing demography and move…

Beier P · Conservation Biology · 1993

Beier combined population modeling with movement and habitat data to estimate how much habitat a cougar population needs to persist and how corridors connecting habitat patches reduce extinction risk.…

Paul Beier · Conservation Biology · 1993

Donadio and Buskirk tested what predicts the intensity of interactions among carnivores, including both killing and avoidance. Analyzing a broad dataset, they found that intraguild predation and aggre…

Donadio, E. & Buskirk, S.W. · The American Naturalist · 2006

Harmsen and colleagues documented how different mammal species use trails versus off-trail forest to varying degrees, and showed that this differential trail use biases camera-trap data when stations…

Bart J. Harmsen, Rebecca J. Foster, Scott C. Silver, Linde E. T. Ostro, C. Patrick Doncaster · Biotropica · 2010

Beier radio-tracked juvenile cougars dispersing through the fragmented Santa Ana Mountains of southern California, documenting how young animals leave their natal areas and search for territory amid e…

Paul Beier · The Journal of Wildlife Management · 1995

Terborgh and colleagues exploited a natural experiment created by a Venezuelan hydroelectric reservoir that isolated land-bridge islands lacking large predators such as jaguars and pumas. On predator-…

Terborgh, J., Lopez, L., Nunez, P. et al. · Science · 2001

This camera-trap study examined how a community of carnivores, including bobcats and pumas, was distributed across an urbanisation gradient in southern California, relating species occurrence and rich…

Ordenana MA, Crooks KR, Boydston EE, Fisher RN, et al · Journal of Mammalogy · 2010

Focusing on a well-studied cougar population, this study characterized the prevalence, genetic diversity and evolutionary dynamics of endemic feline immunodeficiency virus in wild pumas. By sampling i…

R. Biek, T. K. Ruth, K. M. Murphy, et al. · Journal of Virology · 2003

Anderson and Lindzey developed and validated a method to estimate cougar kill rates by identifying spatial clusters of GPS locations and field-checking them for carcasses, then modeling which clusters…

Anderson, C.R. & Lindzey, F.G. · Wildlife Society Bulletin · 2003

Kelly and colleagues estimated puma densities at multiple Latin American sites using camera-trap capture-recapture, confronting the challenge that pumas, unlike jaguars, have relatively uniform coats…

Marcella J. Kelly, Andrew J. Noss, Marcelo S. Di Bitetti, Leonardo Maffei, Rosario L. Arispe, et al. · Journal of Mammalogy · 2008

Building on long-term monitoring of pumas around Los Angeles, this study modelled how genetic and demographic factors could interact to drive small, urbanization-isolated populations toward an extinct…

Benson JF, Mahoney PJ, Vickers TW, Sikich JA, Beier P, Riley SPD, Ernest HB, Boyce WM · Ecological Applications · 2019

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 experimental study demonstrated that the mere sound of human voices induced fear responses cascading from pumas down to mice in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Playback of human speech caused pumas to…

Suraci JP, Clinchy M, Zanette LY, Wilmers CC · Ecology Letters · 2019

Suraci and colleagues extended the ecology-of-fear framework to whole communities, using playbacks of human voices across the Santa Cruz Mountains to test how fear of humans cascades through a food we…

Justin P. Suraci, Michael Clinchy, Liana Y. Zanette, Christopher C. Wilmers · Ecology Letters · 2019

Smith and colleagues, working with the Santa Cruz Puma Project, used playback experiments at puma kill sites, broadcasting human voices versus a control of frog calls, while monitoring the cats' behav…

Justine A. Smith, Justin P. Suraci, Michael Clinchy, Ayana Crawford, Devin Roberts, Liana Y. Zanette, Christopher C. Wilmers · Proceedings of the Royal Society B · 2017

Foster and colleagues compared the diets of jaguars and pumas in Belize using scat analysis along a gradient of human disturbance. They found the two big cats partition prey to some degree, with jagua…

Foster, R.J., Harmsen, B.J., Valkenburgh, B., Doncaster, C.P. · Journal of Zoology · 2010

Using genetic samples from pumas across southern California, this study revealed that freeways and urban development had carved the regional population into fragments with reduced gene flow and signs…

Ernest HB, Vickers TW, Morrison SA, Buchalski MR, Boyce WM · PLoS ONE · 2014

This study evaluated the landmark 1995 intervention in which eight female Texas pumas were released into Florida to counteract the inbreeding crisis of the endangered Florida panther. Tracking the pop…

Warren E. Johnson, David P. Onorato, Stephen J. O'Brien, et al. · Science · 2010

This study used mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites across the puma's vast range from Canada to Patagonia to reconstruct the species' population history. The authors found surprisingly low genetic d…

Melanie Culver, Warren E. Johnson, Jill Pecon-Slattery, Stephen J. O'Brien · Journal of Heredity · 2000