Khaewphakdee Supawat, Simcharoen Achara, Duangchantrasiri Somphot, Chimchome Vijak, Simcharoen Saksit, Smith James L D
Department of Forest Biology Faculty of Forestry Kasetsart University Bangkok Thailand.
Department of National Parks Wildlife and Plant Conservation Nakhonsawan Thailand.
Ecol Evol. 2020 Apr 16;10(11):5152-5159. doi: 10.1002/ece3.6268. eCollection 2020 Jun.
The primary prey of tigers across much of South-East Asia has been depleted, reducing the ability of already limited habitat to support tigers. To better understand the extent to which two of the largest prey species, gaur () and banteng (), contribute to the tiger's diet, we estimated the average size of these species killed by tigers. This information is needed to more accurately calculate biomass of these species in the tiger's diet and to devise strategies to increase tiger carrying capacity where habitat is fragmented and limited in west-central Thailand. We used temporally clumped locations of 24 satellite radio-collared tigers to identify their kill sites and obtained mandibles from 82 gaur and 79 banteng. Kills were aged by teeth eruption sequence, sectioning the M1 molar and counting cementum annuli. Of all gaur killed, 45.2% were adults; of all banteng killed, 55.7% were adults. The average weight of banteng killed was 423.9 kg, which was similar to the 397.9 kg average weight for gaur. The mean weight of both prey species is 3.5-4.5 times greater than the predicted 1:1 preferred prey to predator ratio. In the absence of medium-sized prey, killing these larger animals may be especially critical for female tigers provisioning nearly independent young when male offspring are already larger than the mother. This is the first study to present data on the average weights of gaur and banteng killed in South-East Asia, and these results suggest that these are key prey species to target in tiger prey recovery efforts.
在东南亚大部分地区，老虎的主要猎物数量已经减少，这降低了原本就有限的栖息地养活老虎的能力。为了更好地了解两种最大的猎物——白肢野牛（）和爪哇野牛（）在老虎饮食中所占的比例，我们估算了被老虎捕杀的这两种猎物的平均体型。需要这些信息来更准确地计算老虎饮食中这些猎物的生物量，并制定策略以提高泰国中西部栖息地破碎化且有限地区的老虎承载能力。我们利用24只佩戴卫星无线电项圈老虎的时间聚集位置来确定它们的捕杀地点，并从82头白肢野牛和79头爪哇野牛身上获取了下颌骨。通过牙齿萌出顺序、切割第一臼齿并计算牙骨质年轮来确定捕杀猎物的年龄。在所有被杀死的白肢野牛中，45.2%是成年个体；在所有被杀死的爪哇野牛中，55.7%是成年个体。被杀死的爪哇野牛平均体重为423.9千克，与白肢野牛397.9千克的平均体重相近。这两种猎物的平均体重都比预计的1:1理想猎物与捕食者体重比大3.5至4.5倍。在缺乏中型猎物的情况下，捕杀这些较大的动物对于哺育几乎独立幼崽的雌性老虎可能尤为关键，因为雄性幼崽此时已经比母亲体型更大。这是第一项提供东南亚地区被杀死的白肢野牛和爪哇野牛平均体重数据的研究，这些结果表明，它们是老虎猎物恢复工作中需要重点关注的关键猎物物种。
