Comparison of trap and radio-revealed home ranges of brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula Kerr) in New Zealand lowland forest

[This is a resume of a paper read at the Ecological Society Conference, 1982.]

First paragraph:
Four brushtail possums were fitted with radio-transmitters and located hourly on three successive nights a month for two years in lowland forest in Orongorongo Valley near Wellington. The resulting home ranges were compared with the ranges revealed by live-trapping on a grid extending over 12 ha during the same two-year period. Minimum area, and a modified minimum-area method, range lengths, three boundary-strip methods and a probability-ellipse method were used in the comparisons. Estimates of individual home ranges based on the two sets of data differ greatly but statistical tests on pooled data showed no significant differences be- tween the radio-revealed ranges and the trap-revealed ranges measured by the larger boundary-strip methods or when expressed as areas of the larger probability ellipses. Generally, the activity centres of the trap-revealed ranges correspond well with the radio-revealed centres of activity.