Srivathsa Arjun, Puri Mahi, Karanth Krithi K, Patel Imran, Kumar N Samba
School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
R Soc Open Sci. 2019 May 29;6(5):182008. doi: 10.1098/rsos.182008. eCollection 2019 May.
Many carnivores inhabit human-dominated landscapes outside protected reserves. Spatially explicit assessments of carnivore distributions and livestock depredation patterns in human-use landscapes are crucial for minimizing negative interactions and fostering coexistence between people and predators. India harbours 23% of the world's carnivore species that share space with 1.3 billion people in approximately 2.3% of the global land area. We examined carnivore distributions and human-carnivore interactions in a multi-use forest landscape in central India. We focused on five sympatric carnivore species: Indian grey wolf , dhole , Indian jackal , Indian fox and striped hyena . Carnivore occupancy ranged from 12% for dholes to 86% for jackals, mostly influenced by forests, open scrublands and terrain ruggedness. Livestock/poultry depredation probability in the landscape ranged from 21% for dholes to greater than 95% for jackals, influenced by land cover and livestock- or poultry-holding. The five species also showed high spatial overlap with free-ranging dogs, suggesting potential competitive interactions and disease risks, with consequences for human health and safety. Our study provides insights on factors that facilitate and impede co-occurrence between people and predators. Spatial prioritization of carnivore-rich areas and conflict-prone locations could facilitate human-carnivore coexistence in shared habitats. Our framework is ideally suited for making socio-ecological assessments of human-carnivore interactions in other multi-use landscapes and regions, worldwide.
许多食肉动物栖息在保护区之外人类主导的景观区域。对人类利用景观中食肉动物分布和牲畜捕食模式进行空间明确的评估，对于尽量减少负面互动并促进人类与食肉动物共存至关重要。印度拥有世界上23%的食肉动物物种，它们在全球约2.3%的土地面积上与13亿人口共享空间。我们研究了印度中部一个多用途森林景观中的食肉动物分布以及人类与食肉动物的相互作用。我们重点关注了五种同域分布的食肉动物物种：印度灰狼、豺、印度胡狼、印度狐和条纹鬣狗。食肉动物的占有率从豺的12%到胡狼的86%不等，主要受森林、开阔灌丛地和地形崎岖程度的影响。该景观中牲畜/家禽被捕食的概率从豺的21%到胡狼的超过95%不等，受土地覆盖以及牲畜或家禽养殖情况的影响。这五个物种还与散养犬表现出高度的空间重叠，表明存在潜在的竞争相互作用和疾病风险，对人类健康和安全产生影响。我们的研究揭示了促进和阻碍人类与食肉动物共存的因素。对食肉动物丰富地区和易发生冲突地点进行空间优先排序，有助于在共享栖息地中实现人类与食肉动物的共存。我们的框架非常适合对全球其他多用途景观和地区的人类与食肉动物相互作用进行社会生态评估。
