Humboldt marten connectivity in the southern Oregon coast ranges

Principal Investigator: Katie Moriarty, PhD, NCASI / Senior Research Scientist Western Forest Wildlife Ecologist

Collaborator: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Supported by: Western Trade Association Member Companies

Project Summary: Marten detections are clustered and extremely limited in distribution, especially in the southern Oregon coast. During recent range-wide modeling, remotely sensed abiotic factors such as precipitation and decreased August temperature are far more predictive for martens compared to tree age, diameter diversity indices, or old growth structural indices. As such, it is unclear which areas within the extant population zone have marten populations. This project will conduct surveys to address connectivity, while further defining marten range and estimate population size in South coastal Oregon.

This effort will help to identify whether southern Oregon has multiple small meta-populations, making them more vulnerable to local extinctions and genetic isolation, or whether martens constitute a connected population, increasing resiliency.

Contact Katie Moriarty at kmoriarty@ncasi.org