Data from: Habitat patch use by fishers in the deciduous forest-dominated landscape of the central Appalachian Mountains, USA

Fishers (Pekania pennanti) are often associated with the coniferous and mixed forests of the northern United States and central Canada, and their ecology has been studied extensively in portions of their distributional range. Recently, natural range expansion and reintroductions have led to recolonization by fishers of portions of the central Appalachian Mountains, USA, where deciduous forest is the dominant vegetation type. We used noninvasive hair snare surveys and microsatellite genetic analysis to detect fishers in the central Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania, USA. We used these detections within an occupancy modeling framework to explore habitat patch use by fishers and the forest characteristics and land use features that influenced it. We found that the likelihood of patch use by fishers was related to forests with higher proportions of low-density residential areas. Our results also suggested lower road densities might be related to higher likelihood of fisher patch use. Fishers in Pennsylvania tolerated some forms of land development. Patch use was not driven by forest type or canopy cover, at least within our deciduous forest-dominated study areas. Future research identifying the threshold values at which forest cover and land development affect patch use by fishers in the central Appalachian Mountains will better inform management decisions with respect to sites for future reintroduction of fishers.Code S1. Analysis code for program RCode S1. Analysis code for program R that we used to: 1) generate models of fisher (Pekania pennanti) detection and patch use in Pennsylvania, USA from July 2007 to October 2008 within an occupancy modelling framework; and 2) compare these models using Akaike's information criterion.Code S1.docxData S2. Capture history and coordinates of survey cellsData S2. Capture history and coordinates of survey cells used to examine fisher (Pekania pennanti) detection and patch use in Pennsylvania, USA from July 2007 to October 2008 within an occupancy modelling framework.Data S2.docxTable S1. Variance inflation factors and Pearson's correlations among covariates in the analysis.Table S1. Variance inflation factors (VIF; first column) and a matrix of pairwise correlation coefficients (Pearson r) between forest characteristics and land-use covariates in modeling patch use by fishers (Pekania pennanti) across Pennsylvania, USA, 2007-2008. Large variance inflation factors (VIF > 4.00) and strong correlation coefficients (|r| > 0.70) are in bold. Correlation coefficients of moderate strength (|r| > 0.50) are italicized.Table S1.docxText S1. Description of correlations among covariatesText S1. Description of correlations among covariates in the analysis and other measurements of forest characteristics and land uses within the survey cells.Text S1.docxData S1. DNA sequences of fisherData S1. DNA sequence file of samples identified as fisher (Pekania pennanti) from hair snare surveys conducted in Pennsylvania, USA from July 2007 to October 2008.PA Fisher_dloop Sequences.fa