Habitat Use of Fox Squirrels in an Urban Environment

“Fox squirrels, Sciurus niger, for instance, use the inside of buildings more during the colder months, with female squirrels exploiting them during the rearing of young (McCleery et al., 2007).”

“Even in urban landscapes, people seek mammal-related activities, such as feeding and watching wild squirrels [3,4].”

“Additionally, fox squirrels may benefit from the supplemental food, ornamental trees and well-watered landscaping in areas of low-level development (Jodice & Humphrey 1992; McCleery et al. 2007) that appear to have potential for fox squirrel conservation, as long as they do not replace natural pinelands or become more…”

“…animal’s home range to the study region at the second-order scale (Johnson’s 1980), we chose to use the animal’s core-use area instead of its home range, as did Beasley et al. (2007) and McCleery et al. (2007), since our intent was to focus on areas where the terns’ space use was most concentrated.”

“environments for roosting and caching space, respectively (McCleery et al. 2007).”

“Residential areas and the urban fringe can provide vegetation structure favorable to fox squirrels, supplemental food, and water (Jodice and Humphrey, 1992; McCleery et al., 2007).”

“As one common prey item of red-tailed hawks, Eastern gray squirrels often occur at high densities in urban areas (McCleery et al. 2007, Parker and Nilon 2008).”

“Yet, urban fox squirrel movements do not appear to be limited by concrete and pavement (McCleery et al. 2007), allowing fox squirrels to readily disperse across the urban landscape.”

“…simulating natural tree cavities in artificial forests and installing artificial nest boxes at intervals of 10 – 45 m and 3 – 13 m above the ground (McCleery et al., 2007; Shi, 2015) would offer shelter to wildlife while encouraging visitors, especially children, to participate in nature…”

“In North America, squirrels and deer cause varying amounts of damage to urban infrastructure, residential housing, and agriculture, requiring costly management (Flyger et al., 1983; Conover, 2001; McCleery et al., 2007).”

“…of sciurids, this includes modifying certain aspects of their ecology: population density (McCleery, 2010); spatial organisation and habitat use (McCleery et al., 2007); dietary composition (Bosch and Lurz, 2012; Krauze-Gryz and Gryz, 2015; Reher et al., 2016); causes of mortality and variables…”

“Even in urban landscapes, one seeks mammal-related activities, such as feeding and observing wildlife (Bjerke and Østdahl 2004; McCleery et al. 2007).”

“It is possible that differences in behavior may only be observable in situations where populations are completely isolated from one another, and future studies may therefore require broader spatial sampling (Koprowski 1994; McCleery et al. 2007b).”

“…of squirrels at our site are considered habitat generalists and are quite 299 adaptable to novel environments (Wiggers and Beasom 1986; Spritzer 2002; Gonzales 2005; 300 McCleery et al. 2007; Lee et al. 2009), so it was unsurprising they were captured frequently 301 on both transects (Table 1).”

“…of fox squirrels is the result *Department of Biological Sciences, Butler University, Indianapolis, IN 46208; csalsbur@butler.edu. of studies conducted in agriculturally fragmented landscapes as opposed to landscapes fragmented by urban sprawl (McCleery et al. 2007, Salsbury et al. 2004).”

“This is the local scale at which Fox Squirrels would be drawn in by the visual cues from the Pecan bait and was used in previous habitat-sampling studies (McCleery et al. 2007); it is an efficient sampling size while still being easily scaled to hectares.”

“The two species of squirrels at 398 our site are considered habitat generalists and are quite adaptable to novel environments 399 [15, 42-45] so it was unsurprising they occurred in high abundance on both transects 400 (Table 1).”

“…observed at the camera location scale and had weak support, and as both species are capable of thriving in heavily urbanized and altered landscapes (McCleery et al. 2007; Parker and Nilon 2008; Larson and Sander 2022), the influence of roads across larger areas may have been obscured or less…”

“The benefits include the milder microclimate, which makes it easier to survive and get food, especially during winter (Bateman and Fleming, 2012); the opportunities for wintering without the need for seasonal migration (Partecke and Gwinner, 2007); the better reproduction conditions due to the extended reproductive se…”

“Unlike the Fox squirrels in Texas that used buildings only during the winter and spring to raise their young ones (McCleery et al. 2007), Gambian sun squirrels use attic of buildings within their ranges throughout the year for roosting.”

“Fox squirrels were an excellent model to use to test these technologies because of their propensity to rapidly cover long distances (>500 m in 1 h) [11] while selecting specific trees for foraging and nesting [12].”

“A third potential driver is that synanthropes use human-made structures as shelter (McCleery 2010), but previous research at the College Station campus found that squirrels actually avoided buildings (McCleery et al. 2007).”