Knowledge on interference competition between species, particularly for scarce crucial resources, such as water, is a topic of increasing relevance for wildlife management given climate change scenarios. This study focuses on two sympatric canids, the African wolf and the side-striped jackal, to evaluate their group size and spatiotemporal activity patterns in the use of a limited resource by monitoring artificial waterholes in a semi-arid environment located in Senegal (West Africa). Remote cameras were deployed at five artificial waterholes to evaluate the number of individuals, age and activity patterns of resource use. African wolves (n = 71; 31% of all carnivore detections) and side-striped jackals (n = 104; 45%) were the most detected carnivore species. While both canids tended to occur alone at waterholes, they showed an evident monthly variation in group size. Both species showed a high activity overlap, with a bimodal activity pattern in waterhole use. However, we found evidence of unidirectional spatiotemporal avoidance, suggesting African wolves might be dominant over side-striped jackals. Our findings provide useful insights to investigate niche partitioning on the use of limited resources and have conservation implications for regions with a prolonged dry season.
Understanding the ecological and evolutionary processes driving biodiversity patterns and allowing their persistence is of utmost importance. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain spatial diversity patterns, including water‐energy availability, habitat heterogeneity, and historical climatic refugia. The main goal of this study is to identify if general spatial drivers of species diversity patterns of phylogenetic diversity (PD) and phylogenetic endemism (PE) at the global scale are also predictive of PD and PE at regional scales, using Iberian amphibians as a case study. Our main hypothesis assumes that topography along with contemporary and historical climate are drivers of phylogenetic diversity and endemism, but that the strength of these predictors may be weaker at the regional scale than it tends to be at the global scale. We mapped spatial patterns of Iberian amphibians' phylogenetic diversity and endemism, using previously published phylogenetic and distribution data. Furthermore, we compiled spatial data on topographic and climatic variables related to the water‐energy availability, topography, and historical climatic instability hypotheses. To test our hypotheses, we used Spatial Autoregressive Models and selected the best model to explain diversity patterns based on Akaike Information Criterion. Our results show that, out of the variables tested in our study, water‐energy availability and historical climate instability are the most important drivers of amphibian diversity in Iberia. However, as predicted, the strength of these predictors in our case study is weaker than it tends to be at global scales. Thus, additional drivers should also be investigated and we suggest caution when interpreting these predictors as surrogates for different components of diversity.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.