TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of human-induced prey depletion on large carnivores in protected areas
T2 - Lessons from modeling tiger populations in stylized spatial scenarios
AU - Carter, Neil H.
AU - Levin, Simon A.
AU - Grimm, Volker
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the editor and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback on this manuscript. We are grateful for funding support by IIA-1301792 from the NSF Idaho EPSCoR Program.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2019/10/1
Y1 - 2019/10/1
N2 - Prey depletion is a major threat to the conservation of large carnivore species globally. However, at the policy-relevant scale of protected areas, we know little about how the spatial distribution of prey depletion affects carnivore space use and population persistence. We developed a spatially explicit, agent-based model to investigate the effects of different human-induced prey depletion experiments on the globally endangered tiger (Panthera tigris) in isolated protected areas—a situation that prevails throughout the tiger's range. Specifically, we generated 120 experiments that varied the spatial extent and intensity of prey depletion across a stylized (circle) landscape (1,000 km2) and Nepal's Chitwan National Park (~1,239 km2). Experiments that created more spatially homogenous prey distributions (i.e., less prey removed per cell but over larger areas) resulted in larger tiger territories and smaller population sizes over time. Counterintuitively, we found that depleting prey along the edge of Chitwan National Park, while decreasing tiger numbers overall, also decreased female competition for those areas, leading to lower rates of female starvation. Overall our results suggest that subtle differences in the spatial distributions of prey densities created by various human activities, such as natural resource-use patterns, urban growth and infrastructure development, or conservation spatial zoning might have unintended, detrimental effects on carnivore populations. Our model is a useful planning tool as it incorporates information on animal behavioral ecology, resource spatial distribution, and the drivers of change to those resources, such as human activities.
AB - Prey depletion is a major threat to the conservation of large carnivore species globally. However, at the policy-relevant scale of protected areas, we know little about how the spatial distribution of prey depletion affects carnivore space use and population persistence. We developed a spatially explicit, agent-based model to investigate the effects of different human-induced prey depletion experiments on the globally endangered tiger (Panthera tigris) in isolated protected areas—a situation that prevails throughout the tiger's range. Specifically, we generated 120 experiments that varied the spatial extent and intensity of prey depletion across a stylized (circle) landscape (1,000 km2) and Nepal's Chitwan National Park (~1,239 km2). Experiments that created more spatially homogenous prey distributions (i.e., less prey removed per cell but over larger areas) resulted in larger tiger territories and smaller population sizes over time. Counterintuitively, we found that depleting prey along the edge of Chitwan National Park, while decreasing tiger numbers overall, also decreased female competition for those areas, leading to lower rates of female starvation. Overall our results suggest that subtle differences in the spatial distributions of prey densities created by various human activities, such as natural resource-use patterns, urban growth and infrastructure development, or conservation spatial zoning might have unintended, detrimental effects on carnivore populations. Our model is a useful planning tool as it incorporates information on animal behavioral ecology, resource spatial distribution, and the drivers of change to those resources, such as human activities.
KW - agent-based model
KW - carnivore
KW - conservation
KW - prey depletion
KW - protected areas
KW - spatial heterogeneity
KW - territoriality
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U2 - 10.1002/ece3.5632
DO - 10.1002/ece3.5632
M3 - Article
C2 - 31641474
AN - SCOPUS:85071908452
SN - 2045-7758
VL - 9
SP - 11298
EP - 11313
JO - Ecology and Evolution
JF - Ecology and Evolution
IS - 19
ER -