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Effects of free‐ranging livestock on occurrence and interspecific interactions of a mammalian community

Mammalian communities inhabiting temperate grasslands are of conservation concern globally, especially in Central Asia, where livestock numbers have dramatically increased in recent decades, leading to overgrazing and land‐use change. Yet, how this pervasive presence of livestock herds affects the c...

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Autores principales: Salvatori, Marco, Oberosler, Valentina, Augugliaro, Claudio, Krofel, Miha, Rovero, Francesco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9788037/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35471769
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/eap.2644
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author Salvatori, Marco
Oberosler, Valentina
Augugliaro, Claudio
Krofel, Miha
Rovero, Francesco
author_facet Salvatori, Marco
Oberosler, Valentina
Augugliaro, Claudio
Krofel, Miha
Rovero, Francesco
author_sort Salvatori, Marco
collection PubMed
description Mammalian communities inhabiting temperate grasslands are of conservation concern globally, especially in Central Asia, where livestock numbers have dramatically increased in recent decades, leading to overgrazing and land‐use change. Yet, how this pervasive presence of livestock herds affects the community of wild mammals remains largely unstudied. We used systematic camera trapping at 216 sites across remote, mountainous areas of the Mongolian Altai Mountains to assess the spatial and temporal patterns of occurrence and the interspecific relationships within a mammalian community that includes different categories of livestock. By adopting a recently proposed multispecies occupancy model that incorporates interspecific correlation in occupancy, we found several statistically strong correlations in occupancy among species pairs, with the majority involving livestock. The sign of such associations was markedly species‐dependent, with larger wild species of conservation concern, namely, snow leopard and Siberian ibex, avoiding livestock presence. As predicted, we found evidence of a positive correlation in occupancy between predators and their respective main prey. Contrary to our expectations, a number of intraguild species pairs also showed positive co‐occurrence, with no evidence of spatiotemporal niche partitioning. Overall, our study suggests that livestock encroaching into protected areas influences the whole local community of wild mammals. Though pastoralism has coexisted with wildlife for millennia in central Asian grasslands, our findings suggest that policies and practices to decrease the pressure of livestock husbandry on wildlife are needed, with special attention on large species, such as the snow leopard and its wild prey, which seem to be particularly sensitive to this pervasive livestock presence.
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spelling pubmed-97880372022-12-28 Effects of free‐ranging livestock on occurrence and interspecific interactions of a mammalian community Salvatori, Marco Oberosler, Valentina Augugliaro, Claudio Krofel, Miha Rovero, Francesco Ecol Appl Articles Mammalian communities inhabiting temperate grasslands are of conservation concern globally, especially in Central Asia, where livestock numbers have dramatically increased in recent decades, leading to overgrazing and land‐use change. Yet, how this pervasive presence of livestock herds affects the community of wild mammals remains largely unstudied. We used systematic camera trapping at 216 sites across remote, mountainous areas of the Mongolian Altai Mountains to assess the spatial and temporal patterns of occurrence and the interspecific relationships within a mammalian community that includes different categories of livestock. By adopting a recently proposed multispecies occupancy model that incorporates interspecific correlation in occupancy, we found several statistically strong correlations in occupancy among species pairs, with the majority involving livestock. The sign of such associations was markedly species‐dependent, with larger wild species of conservation concern, namely, snow leopard and Siberian ibex, avoiding livestock presence. As predicted, we found evidence of a positive correlation in occupancy between predators and their respective main prey. Contrary to our expectations, a number of intraguild species pairs also showed positive co‐occurrence, with no evidence of spatiotemporal niche partitioning. Overall, our study suggests that livestock encroaching into protected areas influences the whole local community of wild mammals. Though pastoralism has coexisted with wildlife for millennia in central Asian grasslands, our findings suggest that policies and practices to decrease the pressure of livestock husbandry on wildlife are needed, with special attention on large species, such as the snow leopard and its wild prey, which seem to be particularly sensitive to this pervasive livestock presence. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2022-06-23 2022-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9788037/ /pubmed/35471769 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/eap.2644 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Ecological Applications published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Ecological Society of America. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
spellingShingle Articles
Salvatori, Marco
Oberosler, Valentina
Augugliaro, Claudio
Krofel, Miha
Rovero, Francesco
Effects of free‐ranging livestock on occurrence and interspecific interactions of a mammalian community
title Effects of free‐ranging livestock on occurrence and interspecific interactions of a mammalian community
title_full Effects of free‐ranging livestock on occurrence and interspecific interactions of a mammalian community
title_fullStr Effects of free‐ranging livestock on occurrence and interspecific interactions of a mammalian community
title_full_unstemmed Effects of free‐ranging livestock on occurrence and interspecific interactions of a mammalian community
title_short Effects of free‐ranging livestock on occurrence and interspecific interactions of a mammalian community
title_sort effects of free‐ranging livestock on occurrence and interspecific interactions of a mammalian community
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9788037/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35471769
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/eap.2644
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