Fig 1.
Nine field sites (black stars) within 3 southwestern deserts of the United States (Chihuahuan (far right hatching), Sonoran (crosshatching) and Mojave (far left hatching)), where field cameras recorded imagery describing visits to water for desert bighorn sheep, mule deer, coyotes and mountain lions, 2009–2016 (TNC Ecorgions [23]); Figure generated using ArcGIS Desktop 10.6 software [https://www.esri.com]).
Table 1.
Metadata of field camera operation.
Columns indicate the number of trail cameras and iButtons (#Cam/iBs), duration of camera operation (with mean and standard deviation [days] across locations), sources used to supplement data (with percent of data supplemented [%]), the number of independent images analyzed by species, including the total number of images acquired (separated by a “/” [desert bighorn sheep (DBS), mule deer (MD), coyote (CY) and mountain lion (MY)]).
Fig 2.
Polar plots describing the timing of species visits.
Plots report the mean proportion of visits to water catchments per month for 4 species across 3 deserts (data pooled across sites and years within a desert). For all plots, red indicates the 4–5 contiguous months receiving the most visits for desert bighorn sheep (January-December (shown as 1–12)). Black indicates the months receiving the least amount of visits to water catchments by bighorn sheep. Bighorn concentrate visits to a 4–5 month period, while both carnivores and mule deer visit water catchments generally year-round. Species silhouettes from [https://www.needpix.com/] under a Creative Commons Zero License for Public Domain.
Fig 3.
Slope parameters and 95% credibility intervals.
Results from multi-species, multi-site models predicting species visits to water catchments within three southwestern deserts of the United States (Chihuahan:red; Mojave:blue; Sonoran:black). For each desert, increases in maximum temperature (TMAX; weekly average of daily maximum temperature) and declines in long-term precipitation (P6: weekly sum of precipitation within a week and the prior 5 weeks) raised visits for mule deer and desert bighorn sheep. RH indicates the weekly average of daily minimum relative humidity, and declines in RH associated with more visits to water by coyotes. Visits to water by mountain lions also increased with declines in long-term precipitation. Visits to water by prey were inconsistent predictors of visits to water by mountain lions. P1 represents the weekly sum of precipitation.