Abstract

Central Indiana is largely dominated by agriculture which has led to numerous historical extirpations of mammals. The bobcat (Lynx rufus) is slowly re-establishing across northern Indiana after near extirpation in the early 1900s and utilizes corridors similar to extirpated mammals. Bobcats as a focal species can serve as an indicator for habitat quality for future designated wildlife corridors. New metrics have emerged from species monitoring through remote sensing technologies such as eco-acoustic indices which summarize sound profiles, are a potential proxy for biodiversity, and could be utilized in monitoring large mammals. Here, we investigate the relationship between Lynx rufus and acoustic indices in Indiana temperate forests. We deployed camera traps and ARUs from May to July 2025 (n=9) to supplement collected data from 2023 to 2025 (n=24), collected habitat quality metrics using densiometers in a 30m grid, and computed distance metrics from sites to landscape features (e.g., water, human settlement, cropland). Then, from ARUs we computed acoustic indices and created a bobcat prey presence ordinal scale. We ran non-parametric correlations (Spearman's Rank, Kendall's Tau) and Poisson regression to test the relationship between generated species and acoustic indices by daily mean. Then, we ran a distance redundancy analysis between bobcat presence and prey presence, habitat metrics, and highly ranked acoustic indices. We found that highly ranked acoustic indices had significant habitat metrics that represent bobcat habitat suitability. It is important to continue researching bobcats to understand how habitat suitability in wildlife corridors can be effectively indicated by acoustic indices.

Keywords

bobcat, ecology, environment, acoustic, bioacoustic, indiana

Date of this Version

8-2025

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