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Estimating carnivore community structures

Obtaining reliable estimates of the structure of carnivore communities is of paramount importance because of their ecological roles, ecosystem services and impact on biodiversity conservation, but they are still scarce. This information is key for carnivore management: to build support for and accep...

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Autores principales: Jiménez, José, Nuñez-Arjona, Juan Carlos, Rueda, Carmen, González, Luis Mariano, García-Domínguez, Francisco, Muñoz-Igualada, Jaime, López-Bao, José Vicente
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5264395/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28120871
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep41036
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author Jiménez, José
Nuñez-Arjona, Juan Carlos
Rueda, Carmen
González, Luis Mariano
García-Domínguez, Francisco
Muñoz-Igualada, Jaime
López-Bao, José Vicente
author_facet Jiménez, José
Nuñez-Arjona, Juan Carlos
Rueda, Carmen
González, Luis Mariano
García-Domínguez, Francisco
Muñoz-Igualada, Jaime
López-Bao, José Vicente
author_sort Jiménez, José
collection PubMed
description Obtaining reliable estimates of the structure of carnivore communities is of paramount importance because of their ecological roles, ecosystem services and impact on biodiversity conservation, but they are still scarce. This information is key for carnivore management: to build support for and acceptance of management decisions and policies it is crucial that those decisions are based on robust and high quality information. Here, we combined camera and live-trapping surveys, as well as telemetry data, with spatially-explicit Bayesian models to show the usefulness of an integrated multi-method and multi-model approach to monitor carnivore community structures. Our methods account for imperfect detection and effectively deal with species with non-recognizable individuals. In our Mediterranean study system, the terrestrial carnivore community was dominated by red foxes (0.410 individuals/km(2)); Egyptian mongooses, feral cats and stone martens were similarly abundant (0.252, 0.249 and 0.240 individuals/km(2), respectively), whereas badgers and common genets were the least common (0.130 and 0.087 individuals/km(2), respectively). The precision of density estimates improved by incorporating multiple covariates, device operation, and accounting for the removal of individuals. The approach presented here has substantial implications for decision-making since it allows, for instance, the evaluation, in a standard and comparable way, of community responses to interventions.
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spelling pubmed-52643952017-01-30 Estimating carnivore community structures Jiménez, José Nuñez-Arjona, Juan Carlos Rueda, Carmen González, Luis Mariano García-Domínguez, Francisco Muñoz-Igualada, Jaime López-Bao, José Vicente Sci Rep Article Obtaining reliable estimates of the structure of carnivore communities is of paramount importance because of their ecological roles, ecosystem services and impact on biodiversity conservation, but they are still scarce. This information is key for carnivore management: to build support for and acceptance of management decisions and policies it is crucial that those decisions are based on robust and high quality information. Here, we combined camera and live-trapping surveys, as well as telemetry data, with spatially-explicit Bayesian models to show the usefulness of an integrated multi-method and multi-model approach to monitor carnivore community structures. Our methods account for imperfect detection and effectively deal with species with non-recognizable individuals. In our Mediterranean study system, the terrestrial carnivore community was dominated by red foxes (0.410 individuals/km(2)); Egyptian mongooses, feral cats and stone martens were similarly abundant (0.252, 0.249 and 0.240 individuals/km(2), respectively), whereas badgers and common genets were the least common (0.130 and 0.087 individuals/km(2), respectively). The precision of density estimates improved by incorporating multiple covariates, device operation, and accounting for the removal of individuals. The approach presented here has substantial implications for decision-making since it allows, for instance, the evaluation, in a standard and comparable way, of community responses to interventions. Nature Publishing Group 2017-01-25 /pmc/articles/PMC5264395/ /pubmed/28120871 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep41036 Text en Copyright © 2017, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Jiménez, José
Nuñez-Arjona, Juan Carlos
Rueda, Carmen
González, Luis Mariano
García-Domínguez, Francisco
Muñoz-Igualada, Jaime
López-Bao, José Vicente
Estimating carnivore community structures
title Estimating carnivore community structures
title_full Estimating carnivore community structures
title_fullStr Estimating carnivore community structures
title_full_unstemmed Estimating carnivore community structures
title_short Estimating carnivore community structures
title_sort estimating carnivore community structures
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5264395/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28120871
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep41036
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