Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Flagstaff, Arizona, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2018 Jul 20;13(7):e0200828. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0200828. eCollection 2018.
Niche differentiation, the partitioning of resources along one or more axes of a species' niche hyper-volume, is widely recognised as an important mechanism for sympatric species to reduce interspecific competition and predation risk, and thus facilitate co-existence. Resource partitioning may be facilitated by behavioural differentiation along three main niche dimensions: habitat, food and time. In this study, we investigate the extent to which these mechanisms can explain the coexistence of an assemblage of five sympatric felids in Borneo. Using multi-scale logistic regression, we show that Bornean felids exhibit differences in both their broad and fine-scale habitat use. We calculate temporal activity patterns and overlap between these species, and present evidence for temporal separation within this felid guild. Lastly, we conducted an all-subsets logistic regression to predict the occurrence of each felid species as a function of the co-occurrence of a large number of other species and showed that Bornean felids co-occurred with a range of other species, some of which could be candidate prey. Our study reveals apparent resource partitioning within the Bornean felid assemblage, operating along all three niche dimension axes. These results provide new insights into the ecology of these species and the broader community in which they live and also provide important information for conservation planning for this guild of predators.
生态位分化是指物种生态位超体积沿一个或多个轴的资源分配，被广泛认为是同域物种减少种间竞争和捕食风险、从而促进共存的重要机制。资源分化可以通过行为沿着三个主要生态位维度来实现：栖息地、食物和时间。在本研究中，我们调查了这些机制在多大程度上可以解释婆罗洲五种共生猫科动物的共存。使用多尺度逻辑回归，我们表明婆罗洲猫科动物在广泛和精细的栖息地使用方面存在差异。我们计算了这些物种的时间活动模式和重叠，并为这个猫科动物群体内的时间分离提供了证据。最后，我们进行了全子集逻辑回归，以预测每个猫科动物物种的出现作为大量其他物种共同出现的函数，并表明婆罗洲猫科动物与许多其他物种共同出现，其中一些可能是候选猎物。我们的研究揭示了婆罗洲猫科动物群体内明显的资源分化，沿三个生态位维度都存在。这些结果为这些物种的生态学以及它们所生活的更广泛的群落提供了新的见解，并为这个捕食者群体的保护规划提供了重要信息。
