Pastoralist disturbance effects on Himalayan marmot foraging and vigilance activity

Abstract

Pastoralism is pervasive and has a long history across the rangelands of Trans-Himalaya. Disturbance associated with pastoralism can influence the behaviour of wild animals; hence, it is important to better understand its effects on wild animal behaviour. We compared the activity budget of the Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana) between areas experiencing both high and low levels of pastoralism, in the Upper Mustang region in Nepal. Scan sampling was used to collect diurnal activity budget data on adult marmots, whereas 2 min focal observations were made on foraging marmots to assess vigilance during foraging. Contrary to our prediction, there was no significant difference between areas of high and low pastoralism in terms of foraging behaviour. However, the vigilance activity of marmots was significantly influenced by the extent of disturbances associated with pastoralism. Marmots scanned the surroundings more often while foraging and spent more time scanning in high pastoralism sites as compared to marmots in low pastoralism sites. Although we found no direct negative effects of pastoralism on foraging time, marmots shifted the time of day when they foraged. This study suggests that marmots adjust their vigilance behaviour according to the environmental conditions in which they occur. These findings have important implications for the conservation of marmots in the wake of increasing pastoral activities and consequent increases in human-wildlife conflict in Nepal.

The impact of disturbance from photographers on the Blue-crowned Laughingthrush (Garrulax courtoisi)

“…Many authors have investigated the responses of breeding birds to human disturbance, such as the energy costs of earlier flight initiation and vigilance (e.g., González et al 2006, Poudel et al 2015, changes in habitat use (e.g., Lafferty 2001, Fernández-Juricic et al 2002, Markovchick-Nicholls et al 2008, Lowe et al 2014, reduced parental care (e.g., Burger 1994, Verhulst et al 2001, Bautista et al 2004, Yasué and Dearden 2006, and decreased reproductive success (Safina andBurger 1983, Bailly et al 2016). Behavioral responses to human disturbance vary among species (Blumstein et al 2005), with, e.g., group-living species more likely to suffer from injuries during panic behavior (Carney and Sydeman 1999).…”

Effects of human activity on the habitat utilization of Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana) in Zoige wetland

“…We found that as a residential species that have to share the same space with human, pairs of Himalayan marmots in Zoige wetland tended to dig more burrows relative to pairs in NH, resulting in shorter interburrow distances if they are suffered persistent but nonfatal disturbance from human activities (Bryant, 1996;Griffin et al, 2007) due to their high phenotypic plasticity (Huang et al, 1986;Poudel et al, 2015aPoudel et al, , 2015b. Besides, most breeding pairs in the region generally prefer to construct their reproductive burrows on mounds.…”

“…Nevertheless, some certain other residential species like some rodents (Harris & Munshi-South, 2017;Maher, 2009), primates (Marty et al, 2019), and some carnivores like some red fox populations (Jahren et al, 2020;Lambe, 2016) are better able to adapt and survive in human-dominated habitats and gain a higher population density relative to their rural congeners. To deal with different human influences suffered, animals have adopted multiple survival strategies such as adjusting time rhythm (Poudel et al, 2015a), allocating more time to vigilance (Griffin et al, 2007;Poudel et al, 2015b), or using habitats farther away from human activity (Macedo et al, 2018;Paudel & Kindlmann, 2012;Pita et al, 2020).…”

“…are large, residential ground-dwelling, and burrowing squirrels with relatively weak ability to disperse and high philopatry (Armitage et al, 2011;Griffin et al, 2007), forcing them to continue exploiting habitats disturbed by humans (Neuhaus & Mainini, 1998). Previous studies illustrated that Himalayan marmots (M. himalayana) deal with grazing disturbances by adjusting their daily time rhythm (Poudel et al, 2015a) and changing the time allocated to feeding and vigilance behavior (Poudel et al, 2015b).…”

“…Some regional populations suffer persistent disturbance from human activities such as extermination campaigns to prevent disease, which subsequently has caused them to increase their reproductive rate in the years following these population reductions (Huang et al, 1986;Wang et al, 1986). Other populations are indirectly disturbed by domesticated yaks and goats, resulting in changes to time spent feeding and greater feeding efficiency (Poudel et al, 2015a(Poudel et al, , 2015b. The effects of persistent, but not fatal, human disturbances on the Himalayan marmot require further investigation.…”