Sharma Hari Prasad, Bhattarai Bishnu Prasad, Regmi Sandeep, Shaner Pei-Jen Lee, Bhandari Shivish, Nepali Amrit, Aryal Bishnu, Tamang Krishna, Kc Sabin, Karki Ajay, Ram Ashok Kumar, Belant Jerrold L, Katuwal Hem Bahadur
Central Department of Zoology, Institute of Science and Technology, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Nepal Zoological Society, Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Proc Biol Sci. 2025 Jan;292(2039):20241939. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2024.1939. Epub 2025 Jan 29.
Understanding factors influencing the spatio-temporal patterns of apex predators is prerequisite for their conservation. We studied space use and diel activity of tigers () in response to prey availability and anthropogenic activities with trail cameras in Nepal during December 2022-March 2023. We used hierarchical occupancy models to evaluate how prey availability (space use of prey species) and anthropogenic activities (number of humans and livestock) contributed to the tigers' space use, while accounting for landscape effects on their detection probability. We calculated the diel activity overlap between tigers and each prey species, as well as with humans and livestock. Overall, tigers had relatively high space use (0.540 ± 0.092) and detection probability (0.742 ± 0.073), and were most influenced by space use of wild pig (), gaur () and number of livestock detections. Tigers exhibited extensive temporal overlap with their prey, but not with humans or livestock. Our study demonstrates that humans and tigers can co-occur in a landscape by altering diel activity and potentially moving cryptically in certain landscapes, provided adequate prey is available. Management actions that ensure adequate prey availability can benefit tiger conservation.
了解影响顶级食肉动物时空模式的因素是其保护工作的前提条件。2022年12月至2023年3月期间，我们在尼泊尔使用了追踪相机，研究了老虎（）的空间利用和昼夜活动，以应对猎物可获得性和人为活动。我们使用分层占用模型来评估猎物可获得性（猎物物种的空间利用）和人为活动（人类和牲畜数量）如何影响老虎的空间利用，同时考虑景观对其检测概率的影响。我们计算了老虎与每种猎物物种以及与人类和牲畜之间的昼夜活动重叠情况。总体而言，老虎具有相对较高的空间利用率（0.540±0.092）和检测概率（0.742±0.073），并且受野猪（）、白肢野牛（）的空间利用以及牲畜检测数量的影响最大。老虎与其猎物在时间上有广泛的重叠，但与人类或牲畜没有。我们的研究表明，只要有足够的猎物，人类和老虎可以通过改变昼夜活动并可能在某些景观中隐秘移动，在同一景观中共存。确保有足够猎物可获得性的管理行动有利于老虎保护。
