Cat coexistence in central Sumatra: ecological characteristics, spatial and temporal overlap, and implications for management

Abstract

At least six species of wild cats live in Sumatra. Many are globally threatened and yet their ecology is poorly understood. We investigated ecological characteristics and spatial and temporal overlap among cats in central Sumatra using data from systematic and opportunistic camera trapping in five major forest blocks. We developed occupancy models assessing probability of site use by each cat based on (1) photo-trap rates of other species at the same locations and (2) landscape-level factors extracted from geographic information systems. We also used two-species co-occurrence models to assess spatial overlap and used kernel density estimates on circular data to assess temporal overlap between species pairs. We photographed five cat species: Sumatran tigers, Sunda clouded leopards, Asiatic golden cats, marbled cats and leopard cats. Four cats were present in all sampling blocks and one sampling block had all five cats. Spatially, cat distributions varied among forest types, within the sampling blocks and across elevation. We placed camera traps at elevations ranging from 6 to 460 m above sea level. The five cats used statistically different elevations, with golden cats found at highest elevation. Site use by tigers and leopard cats negatively covaried with distance to protected areas. Clouded leopard presence covaried positively with altitude. Leopard cat presence covaried with the photo-trap rate of tigers, whereas the presence of tigers covaried with the photo-trap rate of non-cat carnivores. We found little evidence of spatial avoidance among cats at camera sites. Temporally, species more similar in size, or with similar-sized prey, had lower overlap, suggesting temporal avoidance. We identified six mechanisms promoting coexistence of central Sumatra cats. Knowledge of interspecific interactions may improve the effectiveness of management aimed at conserving the increasingly threatened wild cat community.

Differential impact of two dominant Formica ant species (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) on subordinates in temperate Europe

“…Most of the concepts regarding the assembly rules of animal communities point to competition as a crucial factor in shaping their composition and structure (MacArthur 1972, Wiens 1983, Farris et al 2015, McFarlane Tranquilla et al 2015, Sunarto et al 2015. This is supported for ants as well by several case studies (e.g.…”

Assessing analytical methods for detecting spatiotemporal interactions between species from camera trapping data

“…; Sunarto et al. ). Often, camera trap stations are pooled for this analysis, thus omitting spatial information.…”

Influência do ambiente e relações predador-presa em uma comunidade de mamíferos terrestres de médio e grande porte em Floresta Ombrófila Densa

“…As presas foram categorizadas de acordo com sua massa corpórea média: grande (>20 kg), média (5 a 20 kg) e pequena (<5 kg) (DAVIS et al, 2011;SUNARTO et al, 2015). O agrupamento para as análises foi feito para que espécies com menos registros fossem contempladas.…”

“…A compreensão dessas relações é importante para conhecermos tanto a ecologia básica destas espécies, como para entender quais as interações que estes apresentam em diferentes ambientes (BLAKE et al, 2012;HERNÁNDEZ-SAINTMARTÍN et al, 2013). Baixas sobreposições de atividade podem facilitar a coexistência entre predadores e mesopredadores, visto em Sumatra entre vários felinos (SUNARTO et al, 2015). Animais com alta sobreposição de nicho podem utilizar deste mecanismo de segregação temporal para ocuparem o mesmo habitat (FERREGUETI et al, 2015).…”

“…Entender interações espaciais interespecíficas facilita a compreensão de como as espécies coexistem em determinados locais. Uma forma de analisar essas informações é o uso de modelos de ocupação (MACKENZIE et al, 2006), nos quais podemos analisar a presença de uma espécie influenciando na ocupação de uma área pela outra (SUNARTO et al, 2015).…”