. Ecology of sympatric populations of mule deer and white-tailed deer in a prairie environment. White-tailed deer; Mule deer. single home range and often made erratic shifts to different home range areas in consecutive years. Whitetails avoided badlands and mixed prairies and selected all other habitats during some season. Selected habitats comprised only 17% of the area. Agricultural crops were important to whitetails throughout the year. Habitat complexes that included hardwood draws and agricultural fields, particularly legume hayfields, were preferred. Habitat complexes available to whitet
. Ecology of sympatric populations of mule deer and white-tailed deer in a prairie environment. White-tailed deer; Mule deer. single home range and often made erratic shifts to different home range areas in consecutive years. Whitetails avoided badlands and mixed prairies and selected all other habitats during some season. Selected habitats comprised only 17% of the area. Agricultural crops were important to whitetails throughout the year. Habitat complexes that included hardwood draws and agricultural fields, particularly legume hayfields, were preferred. Habitat complexes available to whitetails influenced their distribution and home range size. Mule deer and white-tailed deer maintained independent distributions despite similarities in habitat preferences. It seemed that either species could effectively use the area. The possibility for competitive exclusion of one species by the other can not be ruled out under these conditions. However, the relatively low densities that prevailed probably precluded competition from having a major impact on either population during this study. Opportunities for species specific management could be used to manipulate the relative proportions of mule deer and white-tailed deer in areas of sympatry. The role of forage-limited carrying capacity, as determined by population density, is questionable for these populations. Precipitation received prior to fawning season was the major factor influencing fawn recruitment rates of both species. Under favorable environmental conditions and in the absence of significant harvests or predation, both populations may tend to stabilize through a mechanism of social interactions that stimulate the dispersal of surplus young deer. Availability of mesic habitats, particularly during late summer, was an important factor influencing productivity of both species. Quality of mesic habitats was influenced by precipitation patterns and was reflected in correlations between the. With careful management pra
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