21st Annual Student Research Conference
Home Range Size of Opossums in an Urban Environment
Jeffrey D. Wright♦
Dr. Scott Burt, Faculty Mentor
Over the past few decades, the United States has become more and more urbanized, leading to a shift from natural habitat to human-dominated landscape marked by buildings, roads, parking lots, etc. With this change in habitat, wildlife living in these are facing new and significant challenges. The Virginia opossum is a habitat generalist that regularly occurs in urban areas. Little is known about the life history of opossums that live in these unique areas. This study focused on the home ranges of opossums within the city limits of Kirksville, MO. Opossums inside the city limits were captured, collared and tracked throughout the year. Home ranges were calculated using ArcGIS and these were compared to home ranges of a small set of opossums residing at Big Creek Conservation Area and also to home ranges from the literature in order to determine if any size difference existed.
Keywords: Didelphis, Opossum, home range, wildlife, telemetry, urban, ecology
Topic(s):Biology
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 30-4
Location: VH 1432
Time: 2:00