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Cong W, Li J, Hacker C, Li Y, Zhang Y, Jin L, Zhang Y, Li D, Xue Y, Zhang Y. Different coexistence patterns between apex carnivores and mesocarnivores based on temporal, spatial, and dietary niche partitioning analysis in Qilian Mountain National Park, China. eLife 2024; 13:RP90559. [PMID: 39259595 PMCID: PMC11390114 DOI: 10.7554/elife.90559] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/13/2024] Open
Abstract
Carnivores play key roles in maintaining ecosystem structure and function as well as ecological processes. Understanding how sympatric species coexist in natural ecosystems is a central research topic in community ecology and biodiversity conservation. In this study, we explored intra- and interspecific niche partitioning along spatial, temporal, and dietary niche partitioning between apex carnivores (wolf Canis lupus, snow leopard Panthera uncia, Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx) and mesocarnivores (Pallas's cat Otocolobus manul, red fox Vulpes vulpes, Tibetan fox Vulpes ferrilata) in Qilian Mountain National Park, China, using camera trapping data and DNA metabarcoding sequencing data. Our study showed that apex carnivore species had more overlap temporally (coefficients of interspecific overlap ranging from 0.661 to 0.900) or trophically (Pianka's index ranging from 0.458 to 0.892), mesocarnivore species had high dietary overlap with each other (Pianka's index ranging from 0.945 to 0.997), and apex carnivore and mesocarnivore species had high temporal overlap (coefficients of interspecific overlap ranging from 0.497 to 0.855). Large dietary overlap was observed between wolf and snow leopard (Pianka's index = 0.892) and Pallas's cat and Tibetan fox (Pianka's index = 0.997), suggesting the potential for increased resource competition for these species pairs. We concluded that spatial niche partitioning is likely to key driver in facilitating the coexistence of apex carnivore species, while spatial and temporal niche partitioning likely facilitate the coexistence of mesocarnivore species, and spatial and dietary niche partitioning facilitate the coexistence between apex and mesocarnivore species. Our findings consider partitioning across temporal, spatial, and dietary dimensions while examining diverse coexistence patterns of carnivore species in Qilian Mountain National Park, China. These findings will contribute substantially to current understanding of carnivore guilds and effective conservation management in fragile alpine ecosystems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wei Cong
- Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Conservation, State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing, China
| | - Jia Li
- Institute of Ecological Conservation and Restoration, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China
| | - Charlotte Hacker
- Department of Biological Sciences, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, United States
| | - Ye Li
- Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Conservation, State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing, China
| | - Yu Zhang
- Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Conservation, State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing, China
| | - Lixiao Jin
- Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Conservation, State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing, China
| | - Yi Zhang
- Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Conservation, State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing, China
| | - Diqiang Li
- Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Conservation, State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing, China
| | - Yadong Xue
- Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Conservation, State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing, China
| | - Yuguang Zhang
- Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Conservation, State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing, China
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Li X, Bleisch WV, Hu W, Li Q, Wang H, Chen Z, Bai R, Jiang XL. Human disturbance increases spatiotemporal associations among mountain forest terrestrial mammal species. eLife 2024; 12:RP92457. [PMID: 38949865 PMCID: PMC11216745 DOI: 10.7554/elife.92457] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/02/2024] Open
Abstract
Spatial and temporal associations between sympatric species underpin biotic interactions, structure ecological assemblages, and sustain ecosystem functioning and stability. However, the resilience of interspecific spatiotemporal associations to human activity remains poorly understood, particularly in mountain forests where anthropogenic impacts are often pervasive. Here, we applied context-dependent Joint Species Distribution Models to a systematic camera-trap survey dataset from a global biodiversity hotspot in eastern Himalayas to understand how prominent human activities in mountain forests influence species associations within terrestrial mammal communities. We obtained 10,388 independent detections of 17 focal species (12 carnivores and five ungulates) from 322 stations over 43,163 camera days of effort. We identified a higher incidence of positive associations in habitats with higher levels of human modification (87%) and human presence (83%) compared to those located in habitats with lower human modification (64%) and human presence (65%) levels. We also detected a significant reduction of pairwise encounter time at increasing levels of human disturbance, corresponding to more frequent encounters between pairs of species. Our findings indicate that human activities can push mammals together into more frequent encounters and associations, which likely influences the coexistence and persistence of wildlife, with potential far-ranging ecological consequences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xueyou Li
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution & Yunnan Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Ecological Conservation of Gaoligong Mountain, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of SciencesKunmingChina
| | - William V Bleisch
- China Exploration and Research Society, 2707-08 SouthMark, Wong Chuk HangHong KongChina
| | - Wenqiang Hu
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution & Yunnan Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Ecological Conservation of Gaoligong Mountain, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of SciencesKunmingChina
| | - Quan Li
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution & Yunnan Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Ecological Conservation of Gaoligong Mountain, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of SciencesKunmingChina
| | - Hongjiao Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution & Yunnan Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Ecological Conservation of Gaoligong Mountain, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of SciencesKunmingChina
| | - Zhongzheng Chen
- Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of the Conservation and Exploitation of Biological Resources, College of Life Sciences, Anhui Normal UniversityWuhuChina
| | - Ru Bai
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution & Yunnan Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Ecological Conservation of Gaoligong Mountain, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of SciencesKunmingChina
| | - Xue-Long Jiang
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution & Yunnan Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Ecological Conservation of Gaoligong Mountain, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of SciencesKunmingChina
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Beaudrot L, Acevedo MA, Gorczynski D, Harris NC. Geographic differences in body size distributions underlie food web connectance of tropical forest mammals. Sci Rep 2024; 14:6965. [PMID: 38521800 PMCID: PMC10960815 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-57500-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2023] [Accepted: 03/19/2024] [Indexed: 03/25/2024] Open
Abstract
Understanding variation in food web structure over large spatial scales is an emerging research agenda in food web ecology. The density of predator-prey links in a food web (i.e., connectance) is a key measure of network complexity that describes the mean proportional dietary breadth of species within a food web. Connectance is a critical component of food web robustness to species loss: food webs with lower connectance have been shown to be more susceptible to secondary extinctions. Identifying geographic variation in food web connectance and its drivers may provide insight into community robustness to species loss. We investigated the food web connectance of ground-dwelling tropical forest mammal communities in multiple biogeographic regions to test for differences among regions in food web connectance and to test three potential drivers: primary productivity, contemporary anthropogenic pressure, and variation in mammal body mass distributions reflective of historical extinctions. Mammal communities from fifteen protected forests throughout the Neo-, Afro-, and Asian tropics were identified from systematic camera trap arrays. Predator-prey interaction data were collected from published literature, and we calculated connectance for each community as the number of observed predator-prey links relative to the number of possible predator-prey links. We used generalized linear models to test for differences among regions and to identify the site level characteristics that best predicted connectance. We found that mammal food web connectance varied significantly among continents and that body size range was the only significant predictor. More possible predator-prey links were observed in communities with smaller ranges in body size and therefore sites with smaller body size ranges had higher mean proportional dietary breadth. Specifically, mammal communities in the Neotropics and in Madagascar had significantly higher connectance than mammal communities in Africa. This geographic variation in contemporary mammalian food web structure may be the product of historical extinctions in the Late Quaternary, which led to greater losses of large-bodied species in the Neotropics and Madagascar thus contributing to higher average proportional dietary breadth among the remaining smaller bodied species in these regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lydia Beaudrot
- Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of BioSciences, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA.
- Department of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA.
| | - Miguel A Acevedo
- Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Daniel Gorczynski
- Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of BioSciences, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA
| | - Nyeema C Harris
- Applied Wildlife Ecology Lab, School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
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Lee SXT, Amir Z, Moore JH, Gaynor KM, Luskin MS. Effects of human disturbances on wildlife behaviour and consequences for predator-prey overlap in Southeast Asia. Nat Commun 2024; 15:1521. [PMID: 38374248 PMCID: PMC10876642 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45905-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2023] [Accepted: 02/07/2024] [Indexed: 02/21/2024] Open
Abstract
Some animal species shift their activity towards increased nocturnality in disturbed habitats to avoid predominantly diurnal humans. This may alter diel overlap among species, a precondition to most predation and competition interactions that structure food webs. Here, using camera trap data from 10 tropical forest landscapes, we find that hyperdiverse Southeast Asian wildlife communities shift their peak activity from early mornings in intact habitats towards dawn and dusk in disturbed habitats (increased crepuscularity). Our results indicate that anthropogenic disturbances drive opposing behavioural adaptations based on rarity, size and feeding guild, with more nocturnality among the 59 rarer specialists' species, more diurnality for medium-sized generalists, and less diurnality for larger hunted species. Species turnover also played a role in underpinning community- and guild-level responses, with disturbances associated with markedly more detections of diurnal generalists and their medium-sized diurnal predators. However, overlap among predator-prey or competitor guilds does not vary with disturbance, suggesting that net species interactions may be conserved.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuel Xin Tham Lee
- School of the Environment, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
| | - Zachary Amir
- School of the Environment, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
| | - Jonathan H Moore
- School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
- School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom
| | - Kaitlyn M Gaynor
- Departments of Zoology and Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | - Matthew Scott Luskin
- Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
- Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
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Li WB, Teng Y, Zhang MY, Shen Y, Liu JW, Qi JW, Wang XC, Wu RF, Li JH, Garber PA, Li M. Human activity and climate change accelerate the extinction risk to non-human primates in China. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2024; 30:e17114. [PMID: 38273577 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.17114] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2023] [Revised: 12/07/2023] [Accepted: 12/10/2023] [Indexed: 01/27/2024]
Abstract
Human activity and climate change affect biodiversity and cause species range shifts, contractions, and expansions. Globally, human activities and climate change have emerged as persistent threats to biodiversity, leading to approximately 68% of the ~522 primate species being threatened with extinction. Here, we used habitat suitability models and integrated data on human population density, gross domestic product (GDP), road construction, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the location of protected areas (PAs), and climate change to predict potential changes in the distributional range and richness of 26 China's primate species. Our results indicate that both PAs and NDVI have a positive impact on primate distributions. With increasing anthropogenic pressure, species' ranges were restricted to areas of high vegetation cover and in PAs surrounded by buffer zones of 2.7-4.5 km and a core area of PAs at least 0.1-0.5 km from the closest edge of the PA. Areas with a GDP below the Chinese national average of 100,000 yuan were found to be ecologically vulnerable, and this had a negative impact on primate distributions. Changes in temperature and precipitation were also significant contributors to a reduction in the range of primate species. Under the expected influence of climate change over the next 30-50 years, we found that highly suitable habitat for primates will continue to decrease and species will be restricted to smaller and more peripheral parts of their current range. Areas of high primate diversity are expected to lose from 3 to 7 species. We recommend that immediate action be taken, including expanding China's National Park Program, the Ecological Conservation Redline Program, and the Natural Forest Protection Program, along with a stronger national policy promoting alternative/sustainable livelihoods for people in the local communities adjacent to primate ranges, to offset the detrimental effects of anthropogenic activities and climate change on primate survivorship.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wen-Bo Li
- Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei, Anhui, China
- International Collaborative Research Center for Huangshan Biodiversity and Tibetan Macaque Behavioral Ecology, Hefei, Anhui, China
| | - Yang Teng
- Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Ming-Yi Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Ying Shen
- Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Jia-Wen Liu
- Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Ji-Wei Qi
- Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Xiao-Chen Wang
- Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Rui-Feng Wu
- Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Jin-Hua Li
- International Collaborative Research Center for Huangshan Biodiversity and Tibetan Macaque Behavioral Ecology, Hefei, Anhui, China
- School of Life Sciences, Hefei Normal University, Hefei, Anhui, China
| | - Paul A Garber
- Department of Anthropology and Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA
- International Centre of Biodiversity and Primate Conservation, Dali University, Dali, Yunnan, China
| | - Ming Li
- Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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Saltz JB, Palmer MS, Beaudrot L. Identifying the social context of single- and mixed-species group formation in large African herbivores. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2023; 378:20220105. [PMID: 37066657 PMCID: PMC10107273 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0105] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/08/2022] [Accepted: 03/08/2023] [Indexed: 04/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Despite continued interest in mixed-species groups, we still lack a unified understanding of how ecological and social processes work across scales to influence group formation. Recent work has revealed ecological correlates of mixed-species group formation, but the mechanisms by which concomitant social dynamics produce these patterns, if at all, is unknown. Here, we use camera trap data for six mammalian grazer species in Serengeti National Park. Building on previous work, we found that ecological variables, and especially forage quality, influenced the chances of species overlap over small spatio-temporal scales (i.e. on the scales of several metres and hours). Migratory species (gazelle, wildebeest and zebra) were more likely to have heterospecific partners available in sites with higher forage quality, but the opposite was true for resident species (buffalo, hartebeest and topi). These findings illuminate the circumstances under which mixed-species group formation is even possible. Next, we found that greater heterospecific availability was associated with an increased probability of mixed-species group formation in gazelle, hartebeest, wildebeest and zebra, but ecological variables did not further shape these patterns. Overall, our results are consistent with a model whereby ecological and social drivers of group formation are species-specific and operate on different spatio-temporal scales. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mixed-species groups and aggregations: shaping ecological and behavioural patterns and processes'.
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Affiliation(s)
- J. B. Saltz
- Department of Biosciences, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA
| | - M. S. Palmer
- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - L. Beaudrot
- Department of Biosciences, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA
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