Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://repositorio.inpa.gov.br/handle/1/14644
Title: Prey availability and temporal partitioning modulate felid coexistence in Neotropical forests
Authors: Santos, Fernanda da Silva
Carbone, Chris
Wearn, Oliver R.
Rowcliffe, Justin Marcus
Espinosa, Santiago
Lima, Marcela Guimarães Moreira
Ahumada, Jorge A.
Gonçalves, André Luis Sousa
Trevelin, Leonardo Carreira
Álvarez-Loayza, Patricia
Spironello, Wilson Roberto
Jansen, Patrick A.
Juen, Leandro
Peres, Carlos A.
Keywords: Animals Trapping
Cat
Forest
Habitat Structure
Habitat Use
Interspecific Competition
Intraguild Predation
Jaguar
Juguarundi
Landscape
Margay
Neotropics
Nonhuman
Ocelot
Organismal Interaction
Prey Searching
Puma
Spatio-temporal Analysis
Species Coexistence
Animals
Biodiversity
Body Weight
Carnivora
Felidae
Forest
Geography
Panthera
Physiology
Predation
Species Difference
Tropic Climate
Animalss
Biodiversity
Body Weight
Carnivora
Felidae
Forests
Geography
Panthera
Predatory Behavior
Puma
Species Specificity
Tropical Climate
Issue Date: 2019
metadata.dc.publisher.journal: PLoS ONE
metadata.dc.relation.ispartof: Volume 14, Número 3
Abstract: Carnivores have long been used as model organisms to examine mechanisms that allow coexistence among ecologically similar species. Interactions between carnivores, including competition and predation, comprise important processes regulating local community structure and diversity. We use data from an intensive camera-trapping monitoring program across eight Neotropical forest sites to describe the patterns of spatiotemporal organization of a guild of five sympatric cat species: jaguar (Panthera onca), puma (Puma concolor), ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi) and margay (Leopardus wiedii). For the three largest cat species, we developed multi-stage occupancy models accounting for habitat characteristics (landscape complexity and prey availability) and models accounting for species interactions (occupancy estimates of potential competitor cat species). Patterns of habitat-use were best explained by prey availability, rather than habitat structure or species interactions, with no evidence of negative associations of jaguar on puma and ocelot occupancy or puma on ocelot occupancy. We further explore temporal activity patterns and overlap of all five felid species. We observed a moderate temporal overlap between jaguar, puma and ocelot, with differences in their activity peaks, whereas higher temporal partitioning was observed between jaguarundi and both ocelot and margay. Lastly, we conducted temporal overlap analysis and calculated species activity levels across study sites to explore if shifts in daily activity within species can be explained by varying levels of local competition pressure. Activity patterns of ocelots, jaguarundis and margays were similarly bimodal across sites, but pumas exhibited irregular activity patterns, most likely as a response to jaguar activity. Activity levels were similar among sites and observed differences were unrelated to competition or intraguild killing risk. Our study reveals apparent spatial and temporal partitioning for most of the species pairs analyzed, with prey abundance being more important than species interactions in governing the local occurrence and spatial distribution of Neotropical forest felids. © 2019 Santos et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
metadata.dc.identifier.doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213671
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