Relationships between humans and ungulate prey shape Amur tiger occurrence in a core protected area along the Sino-Russian border
Relationships between humans and ungulate prey shape Amur tiger occurrence in a core protected area along the Sino-Russian border
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人类与有蹄类猎物之间的关系影响了中俄边境核心保护区东北虎的出现
DOI：
10.1002/ece3.4620
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发表时间：
2018
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
Ge Jianping
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Xiao Wenhong;Hebblewhite Mark;Robinson Hugh;Feng Limin;Zhou Bo;Mou Pu;Wang Tianming;Ge Jianping
大型食肉动物种群在全球范围内受到人类影响的威胁。更好的保护可以使食肉动物、共生物种及其栖息的生态系统受益。然而，在人类活动频繁的地区，食肉动物和人类之间的关系并不总是一致的，而且往往是通过人类对有蹄类动物猎物的影响来调节的。为了验证关于猎物丰度和人类如何影响食肉动物发生、密度和日常活动模式的假设，我们基于中国老虎恢复的核心区域--珲春自然保护区的相机捕捉数据，评估了老虎-猎物-人类的时空模式。我们的研究区域包含季节性变化的人类干扰水平在夏季和冬季。我们使用N混合模型来预测考虑人类和环境协变量的有蹄类动物猎物的相对丰度。我们估计老虎的空间分布使用占用模型和模型的猎物相对丰度从N-混合模型。最后，我们估计的时间活动模式的老虎和猎物使用核密度估计测试老虎，猎物和人类之间的时间回避。我们的研究结果表明，人类相关活动在不同规模和不同方式下降低了猎物的相对丰度，但在不同物种中，猎物的相对丰度直接增加了老虎的占有率。夏季和冬季老虎的占有率与西卡鹿的相对丰度呈显著正相关。黄昏和夜间活动的老虎也明显与野猪和狍的活动同步。然而，老虎暂时避免人类活动，没有直接的空间回避。我们的研究通过人类对猎物种群的影响来支持人类对老虎的影响。保护工作不仅可以针对人类对捕食者的干扰，也可以针对猎物，以缓解人类与食肉动物的冲突。
Large carnivore populations are globally threatened by human impacts. Better protection could benefit carnivores, co‐occurring species, and the ecosystems they inhabit. The relationship between carnivores and humans, however, is not always consistent in areas of high human activities and is often mediated through the effects of humans on their ungulate prey. To test assumptions regarding how prey abundance and humans affect carnivore occurrence, density, and daily activity patterns, we assessed tiger–prey–human spatiotemporal patterns based on camera‐trapping data in Hunchun Nature Reserve, a promising core area for tiger restoration in China. Our study area contained seasonally varying levels of human disturbance in summer and winter. We used N‐mixture models to predict the relative abundance of ungulate prey considering human and environmental covariates. We estimated tiger spatial distribution using occupancy models and models of prey relative abundance from N‐mixture models. Finally, we estimated temporal activity patterns of tigers and prey using kernel density estimates to test for temporal avoidance between tigers, prey, and humans. Our results show that human‐related activities depressed the relative abundance of prey at different scales and in different ways, but across species, the relative abundance of prey directly increased tiger occupancy. Tiger occupancy was strongly positively associated with the relative abundance of sika deer in summer and winter. The crepuscular and nocturnal tigers also apparently synchronized their activity with that of wild boar and roe deer. However, tigers temporally avoided human activity without direct spatial avoidance. Our study supports the effects of humans on tigers through human impacts on prey populations. Conservation efforts may not only target human disturbance on predators, but also on prey to alleviate human–carnivore conflict.