Gubbi Sanjay, Sharma Koustubh, Kumara Vijaya
Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore, Karnataka, India.
Department of Wildlife and Management, Kuvempu University, Shankaraghatta, Karnataka, India.
PeerJ. 2020 Oct 8;8:e10072. doi: 10.7717/peerj.10072. eCollection 2020.
Understanding abundance and distribution of species is often necessary for wildlife conservation. However, elusive species such as the leopard () that have wide geographical distribution and typically low abundance pose a constant challenge to conservationists due to logistical and methodological constraints. Although leopard abundance has been estimated at the scale of protected areas or other smaller regions, reliable information describing leopard distribution over large spatial scales remains largely unavailable. Knowledge about space use by leopards within landscapes could help improve conservation management, reduce human-wildlife conflict, and also facilitate population status monitoring. We carried out occupancy surveys across c. 24,000 km in southern India in a landscape that consisted a mosaic of leopards' natural habitats and highly human-dominated areas. We investigated the effects of key ecological and anthropogenic variables in determining leopard space use patterns. We addressed imperfect detections obtained using sign surveys conducted on spatially replicated transects within sampling units by modeling detection as a function of spatial auto-correlation and covariates. Our results show that the probability of site-use by leopards across the landscape varied between 0.02 (95% CI [0.01-0.09]) and 0.99 (95% CI [0.99-1.0]) across the study area. The best model (AIC weight = 0.97) showed that the probability of leopard space use was affected by the proportion of natural habitats and the presence of large wild prey in the sampling unit. Given that India is undergoing rapid modifications due to economic changes and demand for natural resources, we emphasize the need for landscape-based approach for conserving and monitoring leopards. We argue that leopards are an indicator of functional ecosystems represented by scrub, deciduous forest and rocky outcrops that do not always get prioritized for conservation, unlike densely forested habitats. Similarly, conservation of natural large wild prey, especially outside the protected area system, should assume greater importance, which could also have a positive impact on reducing human-leopard conflict.
了解物种的丰富度和分布情况对于野生动物保护往往至关重要。然而，像豹这样分布地域广泛且数量通常稀少的难以捉摸的物种，由于后勤和方法上的限制，给保护主义者带来了持续的挑战。尽管在保护区或其他较小区域的尺度上已经对豹的数量进行了估计，但描述豹在大空间尺度上分布的可靠信息仍然非常缺乏。了解豹在景观中的空间利用情况有助于改善保护管理、减少人类与野生动物的冲突，还能促进种群状况监测。我们在印度南部约24000平方公里的一片景观区域内进行了占有率调查，该区域由豹的自然栖息地和人类高度主导的区域组成。我们研究了关键生态和人为变量对豹空间利用模式的影响。我们通过将检测建模为空间自相关和协变量的函数，解决了在采样单元内空间重复样带上进行迹象调查所获得的不完美检测问题。我们的结果表明，在整个研究区域内，豹在各个地点出现的概率在0.02（95%置信区间[0.01 - 0.09]）到0.99（95%置信区间[0.99 - 1.0]）之间变化。最佳模型（AIC权重 = 0.97）表明，豹空间利用的概率受到采样单元内自然栖息地比例和大型野生猎物存在情况的影响。鉴于印度由于经济变化和对自然资源的需求正在经历快速变革，我们强调需要采用基于景观的方法来保护和监测豹。我们认为，豹是由灌丛、落叶林和岩石露头所代表的功能生态系统的指标，这些生态系统与茂密森林栖息地不同，在保护中并不总是被优先考虑。同样，保护自然大型野生猎物，特别是在保护区系统之外，应该具有更大的重要性，这也可能对减少人类与豹的冲突产生积极影响。
