Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia/Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, Pará, Brazil.
Department of Mastozoology-Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Belém, Pará, Brazil.
PLoS One. 2019 Mar 12;14(3):e0213671. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213671. eCollection 2019.
Carnivores have long been used as model organisms to examine mechanisms that allow coexistence among ecologically similar species. Interactions between carnivores, including competition and predation, comprise important processes regulating local community structure and diversity. We use data from an intensive camera-trapping monitoring program across eight Neotropical forest sites to describe the patterns of spatiotemporal organization of a guild of five sympatric cat species: jaguar (Panthera onca), puma (Puma concolor), ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi) and margay (Leopardus wiedii). For the three largest cat species, we developed multi-stage occupancy models accounting for habitat characteristics (landscape complexity and prey availability) and models accounting for species interactions (occupancy estimates of potential competitor cat species). Patterns of habitat-use were best explained by prey availability, rather than habitat structure or species interactions, with no evidence of negative associations of jaguar on puma and ocelot occupancy or puma on ocelot occupancy. We further explore temporal activity patterns and overlap of all five felid species. We observed a moderate temporal overlap between jaguar, puma and ocelot, with differences in their activity peaks, whereas higher temporal partitioning was observed between jaguarundi and both ocelot and margay. Lastly, we conducted temporal overlap analysis and calculated species activity levels across study sites to explore if shifts in daily activity within species can be explained by varying levels of local competition pressure. Activity patterns of ocelots, jaguarundis and margays were similarly bimodal across sites, but pumas exhibited irregular activity patterns, most likely as a response to jaguar activity. Activity levels were similar among sites and observed differences were unrelated to competition or intraguild killing risk. Our study reveals apparent spatial and temporal partitioning for most of the species pairs analyzed, with prey abundance being more important than species interactions in governing the local occurrence and spatial distribution of Neotropical forest felids.
食肉动物长期以来一直被用作模型生物，以研究允许生态相似物种共存的机制。包括竞争和捕食在内的食肉动物之间的相互作用是调节当地群落结构和多样性的重要过程。我们利用来自八个新热带森林地点的密集相机监测计划的数据，描述了五个共生猫科动物物种（美洲虎、美洲狮、豹猫、猞猁和虎猫）的时空组织模式。对于前三种最大的猫科动物，我们开发了多阶段占有率模型，考虑了栖息地特征（景观复杂性和猎物可用性）和物种相互作用模型（潜在竞争猫科动物物种的占有率估计）。栖息地利用模式最能被猎物可用性解释，而不是栖息地结构或物种相互作用，没有证据表明美洲虎对美洲狮和豹猫的占有率或美洲狮对豹猫的占有率存在负面关联。我们进一步探讨了所有五种猫科动物的时间活动模式和重叠。我们观察到美洲虎、美洲狮和豹猫之间存在中度的时间重叠，其活动高峰期存在差异，而猞猁和豹猫和虎猫之间的时间分隔度更高。最后，我们进行了时间重叠分析，并计算了研究地点的物种活动水平，以探讨物种内部的日常活动变化是否可以用不同程度的当地竞争压力来解释。豹猫、猞猁和虎猫的活动模式在各地点都呈双峰型，但美洲狮的活动模式不规则，这很可能是美洲虎活动的反应。各地点的活动水平相似，观察到的差异与竞争或种内捕食风险无关。我们的研究表明，大多数分析的物种对都存在明显的空间和时间分隔，猎物丰度比物种相互作用更重要，控制着新热带森林猫科动物的局部出现和空间分布。
