Jaguar and Puma Activity Patterns and Predator‐Prey Interactions in Four Brazilian Biomes

Abstract

Jaguars (Panthera onca) and pumas (Puma concolor) coexist throughout the Neotropics. Using camera trapping in four Brazilian biomes, we compare the daily activity patterns of the jaguar and puma, and their relationships with their main prey species. We used a kernel density method to quantify daily activity patterns and to investigate overlap between these predators and their main prey. Both cats showed intensive nocturnal and crepuscular activity (0.69 and 0.14 kernel density, respectively, for jaguars; 0.68 and 0.19 kernel density, respectively, for pumas). Only in the Pantanal did we observe a pattern of concentrated diurnal activity for both species. We found little temporal segregation between jaguars and pumas, as they showed similar activity patterns with high coefficients of overlapping (average ∆1 = 0.86; SE = 0.15). We also observed a significant overlap between the activity patterns of the predators and their main prey species, suggesting that both predators adjust their activity to reduce their foraging energy expenditure. Our findings suggest that temporal partitioning is probably not a generalized mechanism of coexistence between jaguars and pumas; instead, the partitioning of habitat/space use and food resources may play a larger role in mediating top predator coexistence. Knowledge about these behavior aspects is crucial to elucidating the factors that enable coexistence of jaguars and pumas. Furthermore, an understanding of their respective activity periods is relevant to management and associated research efforts.

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

“…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). Pumas were also cathemeral, which is consistent with observations of Gómez et al (2005) in Bolivia; although in Argentina, western Bolivia and Chile, pumas are crepuscular (Lucherini et al, 2009).…”

“…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.…”

“…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. species that were active both day and night) (RomeroMuñoz et al, 2010;Foster et al, 2013). These analyses were also performed in the software R, using the approach developed by Ridout & Linkie (2009).…”

“…Camera trapping has proved to be one of the most useful tools for wildlife surveys as it is non-invasive and provides information on cryptic and inconspicuous species (Harmsen et al, 2009;Sarmento et al, 2009;Surnato et al, 2013). Data obtained from camera trapping can be used to study several topics of animal ecology such as inventories (Srbek-Araujo & Chiarello, 2005;Tobler et al, 2008), site occupancy (Mackenzie & Royle, 2005;O'Connell et al, 2006;Rich et al, 2013), patterns of spatial partitioning among species (Sarmento et al, 2011;Sollmann et al, 2012), temporal interactions between species as well as activity patterns (Foster et al, 2013;Frey et al, 2017). In the last two decades, several factors contributing to Neotropical carnivore coexistence have been studied using camera trapping (Vieira & Port, 2007;Di Bitetti et al, 2010;Bianchi et al, 2016).…”

Overlap in activity patterns between big cats and their main prey in northern Quintana Roo, Mexico

“…Los felinos de gran tamaño, como es el caso del jaguar (Panthera onca) y puma (Puma concolor) cuya distribución es simpátrica (Scognamillo et al 2003), se encuentran activos tanto de noche como de día y presentan un alto traslape en sus patrones de actividad (Sunquist y Sunquist 2002;Foster et al 2013;Hernández-Saint Martín et al 2013). Sin embargo, la diferencia parece radicar en los picos de actividad dentro de cada una de las categorías (diurno, nocturno y crepuscular) dentro del ciclo circadiano (Hernández-Saint Martín et al 2013) o en la asociación con sus presas; no obstante, estos factores no son constantes a lo largo de su distribución (Sunquist 1981;Emmons 1987;Foster et al 2010).…”