Piña-Covarrubias Evelyn, Chávez Cuauhtémoc, Chapman Mark A, Morales Montserrat, Elizalde-Arellano Cynthia, Doncaster C Patrick
School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom.
Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Unidad Lerma, Lerma de Villada, Estado de México, Mexico.
J Mammal. 2022 Nov 9;104(1):115-127. doi: 10.1093/jmammal/gyac090. eCollection 2023 Feb.
Jaguars and pumas are top-predator species in the Neotropics that are threatened by habitat destruction, illegal poaching of their body parts and their favored prey, and by the human-wildlife conflicts that arise when predators attack livestock. Much of the remaining felid habitat in the Americas is in protected nature reserves that are too small and isolated to support local populations. Surrounding forests therefore play a vital role in felid conservation. Successful long-term conservation of these two felids requires evidence-based knowledge of their biological and ecological requirements. We studied population distributions of jaguars and pumas and their prey in and between two small, private reserves of the Northern Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico, with areas of 25 and 43 km. During 2 years of camera trapping (2015 and 2016), we detected 21 jaguars, from which we estimated an average space requirement of 28-45 km/individual. Dietary niche overlap exceeded random expectation. The most frequently occurring prey items in jaguar and puma diets were collared peccary and deer. Jaguar also favored nine-banded armadillos and white-nosed coati, while puma favored canids. Both felids avoided ocellated turkey. Overall, diet of jaguars was less species-rich, but similar in niche breadth, to that of pumas. A fluid use of space by both species, in 2015 tending toward mutual attraction and in 2016 toward partial exclusion of pumas by jaguars, combined with the high dietary overlap, is consistent with a dominance hierarchy facilitating coexistence. Jaguars and pumas favor the same prey as the people in local communities who hunt, which likely will intensify human-wildlife impacts when prey become scarce. We conclude that even small reserves play an important role in increasing the continuity of habitat for prey and large felids, whose generalist habits suppress interspecific competition for increasingly limiting prey that are largely shared between them and humans.
美洲豹和美洲狮是新热带地区的顶级食肉动物，它们受到栖息地破坏、非法偷猎其身体部位及其喜爱的猎物以及食肉动物攻击牲畜时引发的人类与野生动物冲突的威胁。美洲剩余的大部分猫科动物栖息地都位于受保护的自然保护区内，这些保护区面积太小且过于孤立，无法维持当地种群数量。因此，周边森林在猫科动物保护中起着至关重要的作用。成功长期保护这两种猫科动物需要基于证据了解它们的生物学和生态需求。我们研究了墨西哥尤卡坦半岛北部两个面积分别为25平方公里和43平方公里的小型私人保护区内及之间美洲豹和美洲狮及其猎物的种群分布情况。在2015年和2016年为期两年的相机诱捕过程中，我们检测到21只美洲豹，据此估计每只个体的平均空间需求为28 - 45平方公里。饮食生态位重叠超过随机预期。美洲豹和美洲狮饮食中最常见的猎物是领西貒和鹿。美洲豹还偏爱九带犰狳和白鼻浣熊，而美洲狮偏爱犬科动物。两种猫科动物都避开眼斑吐绶鸡。总体而言，美洲豹的饮食种类丰富度较低，但生态位宽度与美洲狮相似。两种物种对空间的灵活利用，2015年倾向于相互吸引，2016年美洲豹对美洲狮有部分排斥，再加上高饮食重叠，这与促进共存的优势等级制度相一致。美洲豹和美洲狮与当地从事狩猎的社区居民偏爱相同的猎物，当猎物变得稀缺时可能会加剧人类与野生动物的冲突。我们得出结论，即使是小型保护区在增加猎物和大型猫科动物栖息地的连续性方面也发挥着重要作用，它们的通食习性抑制了对日益有限的猎物的种间竞争，这些猎物在很大程度上是它们和人类共同的。
