Evaluating the temporal and spatio-temporal niche partitioning between carnivores by different analytical method in northeastern Japan.
Sci Rep 2022;
12:11987. [PMID:
35835847 PMCID:
PMC9283404 DOI:
10.1038/s41598-022-16020-w]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/24/2021] [Accepted: 07/04/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
Temporal and spatio-temporal niche partitioning is an important strategy for carnivore coexistence. Camera-trap data has been analyzed through several methods to assess the temporal and spatio-temporal niche partitioning. However, different analytical approaches used to may evaluate niche partitioning detect different results. In this study, we evaluated the temporal or spatio-temporal partitioning among sympatric medium-sized carnivores, red foxes, raccoon dogs, and Japanese martens, based on three analytical methods-the temporal overlap, temporal co-occurrence, and time-to-encounter analysis-to evaluate. From May to October 2019 and 2020, we obtained the activity of the target species using camera-traps in northeastern Japan. We analyzed the data with the coefficient of temporal overlap, probabilistic co-occurrence analysis, checkerboard score, and multi-response permutation procedures. The results of the assessment of the niche partitioning differed depending on the analytical methods based on temporal and spatio-temporal partitioning. Therefore, we conclude that the choice of analytical approach is important for evaluating the temporal and spatio-temporal niche partitioning.
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