Frontiers | Relative abundance of a mesocarnivore in a human-dominated, semi-arid rangeland in Namibia

IF 2.4 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Pub Date : 2024-08-27 DOI:10.3389/fevo.2024.1333162

Emma Reasoner, Laurie Marker, Stijn Verschueren, Willem Briers-Louw, Meed Mbidzo, Bogdan Cristescu

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Abstract

Mesocarnivores fill important roles in ecological communities globally, but their distribution and abundance are often understudied. Many species have historically been regarded as vermin and subject to lethal control due to their role in livestock predation. Identifying the factors influencing mesocarnivore populations can help disentangle their relationship within ecological communities and inform conflict mitigation and conservation priorities. To help identify these factors, we used camera traps to study the community of medium and large mammals in four communal conservancies of northeastern Namibia covering the wet and dry seasons using 99 and 97 camera trap stations, respectively. We modelled black-backed jackal (Lupulella mesomelas) abundance using the robust Royle-Nichols model. Black-backed jackal were widespread, with a mean per site abundance of 2.01 (SD=0.66) in the wet season and 2.41 (SD=0.49) in the dry season. Black-backed jackal showed seasonally contrasting covariate associations, with lower abundance in areas with medium and large-sized wild prey during the wet season, and higher abundance in areas with more villages and close to African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) dens in the dry season. We identified localized hotspots of black-backed jackal abundance during the dry season, which may indicate that when resources are scarce, black-backed jackals rely on anthropogenic food sources despite an elevated risk for conflict, and on carcass remains from African wild dog kills. These findings highlight potential drivers of mesocarnivore abundance that would be obscured in a conventional occurrence modelling framework, and illustrate how local abundance may be influenced by seasonal variability, wild and anthropogenic food sources, and a likely facilitative relationship with a large carnivore. Further investigations in areas with more complex carnivore guilds and higher density of dominant predators are needed to understand black-backed jackal-African wild dog interactions and impacts on population dynamics.

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纳米比亚人类占主导地位的半干旱牧场中中食肉动物的相对丰度

中食肉动物在全球生态群落中扮演着重要角色，但它们的分布和数量往往未得到充分研究。由于中食肉动物在牲畜捕食中的作用，许多物种历来被视为害虫并受到致命控制。确定影响中食肉动物种群的因素有助于厘清它们在生态群落中的关系，并为缓解冲突和保护优先事项提供信息。为了帮助确定这些因素，我们使用相机陷阱研究了纳米比亚东北部四个社区保护区的中型和大型哺乳动物群落，分别在雨季和旱季使用了 99 个和 97 个相机陷阱站。我们使用稳健的 Royle-Nichols 模型对黑背豺（Lupulella mesomelas）的丰度进行了模拟。黑背豺分布广泛，雨季每个站点的平均丰度为 2.01（SD=0.66），旱季为 2.41（SD=0.49）。黑背豺表现出季节性对比的协变量关联，在雨季，有中型和大型野生猎物的地区丰度较低，而在旱季，村庄较多且靠近非洲野狗（Lycaon pictus）巢穴的地区丰度较高。我们发现了旱季黑背豺丰度的局部热点地区，这可能表明当资源稀缺时，黑背豺尽管冲突风险较高，但仍会依赖人为食物来源以及非洲野狗猎杀的尸体残骸。这些发现强调了中型食肉动物丰度的潜在驱动因素，而这些因素在传统的发生模型框架中会被掩盖，并说明了当地的丰度如何受到季节变化、野生和人为食物来源以及与大型食肉动物之间可能存在的促进关系的影响。要了解黑背豺-非洲野狗之间的相互作用及其对种群动态的影响，还需要在食肉动物联盟更复杂、优势食肉动物密度更高的地区开展进一步调查。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Environmental Science-Ecology

CiteScore

4.00

自引率

6.70%

发文量

1143

审稿时长

12 weeks

期刊介绍： Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research across fundamental and applied sciences, to provide ecological and evolutionary insights into our natural and anthropogenic world, and how it should best be managed. Field Chief Editor Mark A. Elgar at the University of Melbourne is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics and the public worldwide. Eminent biologist and theist Theodosius Dobzhansky’s astute observation that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” has arguably even broader relevance now than when it was first penned in The American Biology Teacher in 1973. One could similarly argue that not much in evolution makes sense without recourse to ecological concepts: understanding diversity — from microbial adaptations to species assemblages — requires insights from both ecological and evolutionary disciplines. Nowadays, technological developments from other fields allow us to address unprecedented ecological and evolutionary questions of astonishing detail, impressive breadth and compelling inference. The specialty sections of Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution will publish, under a single platform, contemporary, rigorous research, reviews, opinions, and commentaries that cover the spectrum of ecological and evolutionary inquiry, both fundamental and applied. Articles are peer-reviewed according to the Frontiers review guidelines, which evaluate manuscripts on objective editorial criteria. Through this unique, Frontiers platform for open-access publishing and research networking, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution aims to provide colleagues and the broader community with ecological and evolutionary insights into our natural and anthropogenic world, and how it might best be managed.