HOME RANGE DYNAMICS OF A SMALL WOODLOT POPULATION OF FOX SQUIRRELS (SCIURUS NIGER) IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS

Circular, elliptical and harmonic home range models were applied to data resulting from 10 years' study of a small woodlot population of fox squirrels in southern Illinois. Measures of home range size, proportion of home range overlapped and probabilistic overlap were generated for periods of lactation, and for periods of mast and nonmast food use. ANOVA, patterns of simple correlations and multiple regression models predicting home range measures were used to compare home range models and to analyze dynamic relationships between home range measures and sex, reproductive status, mast supply and demographic variables.;The harmonic model was identified as the potentially most realistic, yet at most 50% of the variance of any harmonic home range measure was explained by predictive equations. Based on analyses of harmonic home range measures, it was determined that: lactating female home range areas are generally larger than those of other reproductive classes; food type has no effect on home range size; overlap onto home range of all reproductive classes is extensive; members of all reproductive classes tolerate probabilistic overlap with reproductively inactive females; mutual avoidance of lactating females occurs, but not through regular spacing of centers of activity; during mating seasons, males may increase their home range to overlap home ranges of more females as the number of females increases; reduced mast supply and increased population size both result in packing of home ranges and increased overlap.