Assessing resource and predator effects on habitat use of tropical small carnivores
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Author list: Chutipong W., Steinmetz R., Savini T., Gale G.A.
Publisher: Springer
Publication year: 2017
Journal: Mammal Research (2199-2401)
Volume number: 62
Issue number: 1
Start page: 21
End page: 36
Number of pages: 16
ISSN: 2199-2401
eISSN: 2199-241X
Languages: English-Great Britain (EN-GB)
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Abstract
Habitat use of animals is influenced by a combination of factors including food abundance and interactions with other species. Animals typically must forage while simultaneously avoiding predation from multiple potential predators, but habitat use in tropical forest ecosystems that assesses effects of both predation risk and resources has rarely been conducted. We used camera traps and occupancy analyses to document small mammalian carnivore occurrence in relation to food abundance and interactions with large predators. We hypothesized that habitat use of six small mammalian carnivores (≤15 kg) would be influenced by (1) abundance of resources (fruit, rodents, and streams) and/or (2) large predators. Predictions regarding food and habitat resources were only supported for one species (crab-eating mongoose, Urva urva), which was positively associated with rodents and streams. Three small carnivores (masked palm civet Paguma larvata, common palm civet Paradoxurus hermaphroditus, yellow-throated marten Martes flavigula) were affected negatively by leopard and mesopredators as predicted. Counter to our predictions, two species (masked palm civet and yellow-throated marten) showed spatial avoidance of tiger suggesting that an apex predator might also pose predation risk to small carnivores. The focal small carnivores and large predators of this study appeared to have moderately to highly overlapping temporal activity indicating no temporal avoidance. In conclusion, food resources appeared to have minimal effects for six small carnivores in this ecosystem probably due to continuous resource availability. Predation risk appeared to affect some species in terms of spatial occupancy but not in temporal activity, indicating perhaps complex, but not entirely negative interactions between larger carnivores and this guild of small carnivores. The mechanisms which facilitate co-occurrence between small carnivores and large predators may, however, operate at finer spatiotemporal scales than we investigated here. © 2016, Mammal Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Białowieża, Poland.
Keywords
Predation risk, Small carnivores, Species interactions
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