Activity patterns of ocelots and their potential prey in the Brazilian Pantanal

Abstract

Camera trapping has been widely used to study different aspects of animal ecology, increasing scientific knowledge and helping in conservation initiatives. Recently, some studies demonstrated the use of this technique to study temporal predator-prey interactions, most of which focused on large felids. In this study, we investigate the activity patterns of the ocelot (Leopardus pardalis)-a medium-sized neotropical cat -and its known potential prey in the Brazilian Pantanal using photographs taken by camera traps. We tested for seasonal differences in activity patterns, and assessed the patterns of temporal overlap between this felid and three known potential prey: the Brazilian rabbit (Sylvilagus brasiliensis), Azara's agouti (Dasyprocta azarae), and Paraguayan punaré (Thrichomys pachyurus). We estimated activity patterns using kernel density and measured the overlap between estimated paired distributions using a coefficient of overlap, hypothesizing that activity patterns would change between the rainy and dry season, and that overlap would be higher with rodents since they comprise the bulk of the ocelot's diet in the Pantanal and elsewhere. Azara's agouti and the Paraguayan punaré were the only species that presented significant changes in their activity patterns between seasons. Contrary to our hypothesis, there was low coincidence of activity patterns between ocelots and Azara's agouti for both seasons, but temporal overlap between ocelots and Paraguayan punarés was high with no significant difference, at least in the dry season. Overall, temporal overlap between ocelots and Brazilian rabbits was high, with no significant differences. In general, our results suggest that ocelots may tailor their activity to that of some of their potential prey to increase the probability of encounters. The results provide the first insight into temporal interactions involving ocelots and their potential prey in the Brazilian Pantanal.

Camera traps as a tool for Carnivore conservation in a mosaic of Protected Areas in the Pantanal wetlands, Brazil

“…This nocturnal behaviour of ocelot may reflect the activity of their favourite small prey (Bianchi et al, 2014), which also tends to be nocturnal (Emmons, 1987). In fact, Porfirio et al (2016a) demonstrated that ocelots tend to tailor their activity to that of their potential prey, probably in an attempt to increase encounters. Jaguars in Amolar Mountain Ridge exhibited cathemeral behaviour, a pattern different of the observed in other areas of the Pantanal (Crawshaw & Quigley, 1991;Foster et al, 2013).…”

“…The remaining records were eliminated from the analysis to reduce bias (Ross et al, 2013). Then, the time of each picture was converted to solar time (Foster et al, 2013;Porfirio et al, 2016a), and observations were classified as diurnal (activity predominantly between 1 h after sunrise and 1 h before sunset), nocturnal (activity predominantly between 1 h after sunset and 1 h before sunrise) or crepuscular (period that last 1 h before to 1 h after sunrise and sunset) following Romero-Muñoz et al (2010). Based on the percentage of pictures in each category, species were classified as diurnal (< 15% of the observations were at night), nocturnal (> 85% of the observations were at night), mostly diurnal (15-35% of the observations were at night), mostly nocturnal (65-85% of the observations were at night), crepuscular (50% of the observations occurred during the crepuscular period), and the rest were classified as cathemeral (i.e.…”

Daily activity patterns of large and medium-sized mammals based on camera traps data in the Central Forest Nature Reserve, Valdai Upland, Russia

“…Like in many other similar studies we used the approach developed by Ridout & Linkie (2009) to estimate the activity patterns of each species using kernel density analysis (Foster et al, 2013;Ross et al, 2013;Bu et al, 2016;Ikeda et al, 2016;Porfirio et al, 2016;Marcon et al, 2017). This is a non-parametric method for evaluating the probability density function of a random variable (Worton, 1989), time of capture in our case.…”

“…This test indicates if there is a significant statistic difference between circular distributions, and it has been used to analysed data from 24 hours activity patterns (Romero-Muñoz et al, 2010;Hernández-SaintMartín et al, 2013;Porfirio et al, 2016). We used R package «circular» for this (Lund et al, 2017).…”

“…For example, comparative assessments of the temporal activity of the jaguar (Panthera onca L.), puma (Puma concolor L.) and their victims (Weckel et al, 2006;Romero-Muñoz et al, 2010;Foster et al, 2013;Hernán-dez-SaintMartín et al, 2013), ocelot (Leopardus pardalis L.) and its victims (Di Bitetti et al, 2006;Porfirio et al, 2016). Data on the activity of carrion visiting by predators and vultures were obtained (López González & Lorenzana Piña, 2002).…”