In the last century, bottomland hardwood (BLH) forests throughout the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley in the United States declined >80% and have been degraded because of habitat loss, fragmentation, and altered hydrology. To better understand how current conditions in BLH forest systems influence wildlife and to better manage land use and vegetation, we characterized winter (Dec–Mar) multi‐scale habitat selection of 75 radio‐marked swamp rabbits (Sylvilagus aquaticus) based on 850 locations in southern Illinois, USA, during 2010–2016. We investigated habitat selection by fitting resource selection functions with generalized linear mixed models based on Euclidean distances (km) to 8 cover types that described hydrogeomorphic conditions. At the second‐order scale of selection (home range selection), swamp rabbits were closer to deciduous forest and low‐elevation BLH and farther from agriculture, permanent water, shallow BLH, and woody wetland. At the third‐order scale of selection (habitat selection within the home range), swamp rabbits selected areas closer to deciduous forest, low BLH, and shallow BLH, and farther from woody wetlands. For the swamp rabbit in Illinois, a BLH specialist at the northern extent of their range, habitat selection is limited to available terrestrial habitat that provides vegetation for food and hiding cover within linear and flood‐prone BLH corridors surrounded by agricultural cover types that are largely unsuitable as habitat. Because hydrologic conditions are spatially and temporally dynamic, wildlife managers should focus on providing diverse habitat conditions across elevations that ensure the continuous availability of terrestrial habitat regardless of water level and flooding extent across the BLH landscape. Further reforestation efforts in BLH ecosystems should target current agricultural land on higher elevations adjacent to characteristically flood‐prone forest remnants that escaped agricultural clearing due to frequent flooding. © 2021 The Wildlife Society.

中文翻译：

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水文地貌影响底栖硬木森林沼泽兔栖息地的选择

在上个世纪，由于栖息地的丧失，破碎和水文状况的改变，美国下密西西比河冲积河谷的底层硬木（BLH）森林下降了80％以上，并且已经退化。为了更好地了解BLH森林系统的当前状况如何影响野生动植物并更好地管理土地利用和植被，我们对75只放射性标记的沼泽兔（Sylvilagus aquaticus）的冬季（12月至3月）多尺度生境选择进行了表征）基于2010-2016年美国伊利诺伊州南部的850个地点。我们通过将资源选择函数与基于欧氏距离（km）的8种描述水力地貌条件的覆盖类型的广义线性混合模型拟合来调查栖息地的选择。在选择的第二等级（家庭范围选择）上，沼泽兔子更靠近落叶林和低海拔BLH，而距农业，永久水，浅BLH和木本湿地更远。在选择的三阶范围内（家园范围内的栖息地选择），沼泽兔选择了更靠近落叶林，低BLH和浅BLH且离木本湿地较远的区域。对于伊利诺伊州北部的BLH专家伊利诺伊州的沼泽兔子，栖息地的选择仅限于可用的陆地栖息地，它为线性和易受洪水袭击的BLH走廊提供食物和掩盖植被，而BLH走廊被农业覆盖类型所包围，而这些农业覆盖类型基本上不适合作为栖息地。由于水文条件在空间和时间上是动态的，因此野生动植物管理者应着重于提供不同海拔的栖息地条件，以确保陆地生境的持续可用性，而不管BLH景观中的水位和洪水程度如何。BLH生态系统中的进一步造林工作应将当前的农业用地定位在海拔较高的农业用地上，该土地应靠近因洪水频发而无法进行农业清理的典型易发洪水森林遗迹。©2021野生动物协会。