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Habitat use of and threats to African large carnivores in a mixed‐use landscape
Large carnivores increasingly inhabit human‐affected landscapes, which exhibit heterogeneity in biotic resources, anthropogenic pressures, and management strategies. Understanding large carnivore habitat use in these systems is critical for their conservation, as is the evaluation of competing manag...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10087927/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35603489 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13943 |
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author | Strampelli, Paolo Henschel, Philipp Searle, Charlotte E. Macdonald, David W. Dickman, Amy J. |
author_facet | Strampelli, Paolo Henschel, Philipp Searle, Charlotte E. Macdonald, David W. Dickman, Amy J. |
author_sort | Strampelli, Paolo |
collection | PubMed |
description | Large carnivores increasingly inhabit human‐affected landscapes, which exhibit heterogeneity in biotic resources, anthropogenic pressures, and management strategies. Understanding large carnivore habitat use in these systems is critical for their conservation, as is the evaluation of competing management approaches and the impacts of significant land‐use changes. We used occupancy modeling to investigate habitat use of an intact eastern African large carnivore guild across the 45,000 km(2) Ruaha‐Rungwa landscape in south‐central Tanzania. We determined the relative impact on five large carnivore species of biotic, anthropogenic, and management factors at the scales of home range selection and short‐term use within home ranges. We also specifically tested the effect of abandonment of trophy hunting areas on large carnivore occurrence. Patterns of habitat use differed among species. Lions (Panthera leo) appeared affected by top‐down limitation, as their occurrence was significantly negatively associated with illegal human activity (β = –0.63 [SE 0.28]). African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), instead, were limited by biotic features; the species was negatively associated with riverine areas of high sympatric predator density (β = –1.00 [SE 0.43]) and used less‐productive habitats. Spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta) and leopard (Panthera pardus) persisted in more disturbed areas and across habitat types. Large carnivore occurrence was not affected by whether an area was used for photographic or trophy hunting tourism; regular law enforcement was instead a better predictor of occurrence. All species fared better in actively managed hunting areas than those that had been abandoned by operators. Overall, our findings highlight the divergent habitat requirements within large carnivore guilds and the importance of adopting an integrated approach to large carnivore conservation planning in modern systems. We also identified a novel threat to African conservation areas in the form of decreased management investments associated with the abandonment of trophy hunting areas. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10087927 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-100879272023-04-12 Habitat use of and threats to African large carnivores in a mixed‐use landscape Strampelli, Paolo Henschel, Philipp Searle, Charlotte E. Macdonald, David W. Dickman, Amy J. Conserv Biol Contributed Papers Large carnivores increasingly inhabit human‐affected landscapes, which exhibit heterogeneity in biotic resources, anthropogenic pressures, and management strategies. Understanding large carnivore habitat use in these systems is critical for their conservation, as is the evaluation of competing management approaches and the impacts of significant land‐use changes. We used occupancy modeling to investigate habitat use of an intact eastern African large carnivore guild across the 45,000 km(2) Ruaha‐Rungwa landscape in south‐central Tanzania. We determined the relative impact on five large carnivore species of biotic, anthropogenic, and management factors at the scales of home range selection and short‐term use within home ranges. We also specifically tested the effect of abandonment of trophy hunting areas on large carnivore occurrence. Patterns of habitat use differed among species. Lions (Panthera leo) appeared affected by top‐down limitation, as their occurrence was significantly negatively associated with illegal human activity (β = –0.63 [SE 0.28]). African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), instead, were limited by biotic features; the species was negatively associated with riverine areas of high sympatric predator density (β = –1.00 [SE 0.43]) and used less‐productive habitats. Spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta) and leopard (Panthera pardus) persisted in more disturbed areas and across habitat types. Large carnivore occurrence was not affected by whether an area was used for photographic or trophy hunting tourism; regular law enforcement was instead a better predictor of occurrence. All species fared better in actively managed hunting areas than those that had been abandoned by operators. Overall, our findings highlight the divergent habitat requirements within large carnivore guilds and the importance of adopting an integrated approach to large carnivore conservation planning in modern systems. We also identified a novel threat to African conservation areas in the form of decreased management investments associated with the abandonment of trophy hunting areas. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-08-04 2022-12 /pmc/articles/PMC10087927/ /pubmed/35603489 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13943 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Contributed Papers Strampelli, Paolo Henschel, Philipp Searle, Charlotte E. Macdonald, David W. Dickman, Amy J. Habitat use of and threats to African large carnivores in a mixed‐use landscape |
title | Habitat use of and threats to African large carnivores in a mixed‐use landscape |
title_full | Habitat use of and threats to African large carnivores in a mixed‐use landscape |
title_fullStr | Habitat use of and threats to African large carnivores in a mixed‐use landscape |
title_full_unstemmed | Habitat use of and threats to African large carnivores in a mixed‐use landscape |
title_short | Habitat use of and threats to African large carnivores in a mixed‐use landscape |
title_sort | habitat use of and threats to african large carnivores in a mixed‐use landscape |
topic | Contributed Papers |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10087927/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35603489 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13943 |
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