Jaguar’s Predation and Human Shield, a Tapir Story

Pérez-Flores, Jonathan; Hénaut, Yann; Sanvicente, Mauro; Pablo-Rodríguez, Nereyda; Calmé, Sophie

doi:10.3390/d14121103

“…As well as functioning as predators within ecosystems, humans can also aid in anti-predation because of the "human shield" effect which allows prey species to live near humans by taking advantage of large predators' aversion to human presence. This phenomenon has been seen in many predator-prey relationships, including elk (Cervus canadensis) and wolves (Canis lupus) in the Rocky Mountains, and tapirs (Tapirus bairdii) and jaguars (Panthera onca) in tropical forests in the Yucatan Peninsula (Hebblewhite et al, 2005, Pérez-Flores et al, 2022. This human shield effect is often utilised when selecting suitable sites to deliver offspring as has been seen in brown bears (Ursus arctos) that make use of humans as protective shields for females wishing to defend their cubs from sexually selected infanticide (Steyaert et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Does fear of humans predict anti-predator strategies in an ungulate hider species during fawning?

Faull,

Conteddu,

Griffin

et al. 2023

Preprint

0

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Humans are a major evolutionary force on wildlife via artificial selection. While often explored through the lens of extractive interactions (e.g., hunting) able to favour certain behavioural traits over others, the implications of non-extractive ones, such as wildlife feeding, remain under-studied. Research has recently shown that people tend to feed (and sometimes favour) a limited subset of bolder individuals within natural populations, although its dynamics and consequences are not fully clear. Using fallow deer living in a peri-urban setting as a model population, we studied whether mother deer that display reduced fear of humans and consistently approach them for food adopt weaker anti-predator strategies by selecting for fawning bedsites that are less concealed and closer to human hotspots, allowing them to take advantage of additional artificial feeding opportunities in comparison to shier mothers in this population. Our dataset encompassed 171 fawns from 109 mothers across 4 years. Contrary to our expectations, we found that mothers that regularly accepted food from humans selected for more concealed bedsites farther away from them, giving their offspring better protection while also taking advantage of additional artificial food during lactating. Our results show marked behavioural adaptation by a subset of females, making this the first time that the link between tendency to approach humans and strategies to protect offspring is explored. Given previous findings that these begging females also deliver heavier fawns at birth, our research adds a piece to the complex puzzle describing human manipulation of behaviour in natural populations and its fitness consequences.

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“…Overall, hunters prefer to hunt within a 20‐km radius of human settlements (Benítez‐Lopez et al., 2017 ), so the optimal foraging for human settlements means more units of prey possible with less effort and fewer resources employed (Benítez‐Lopez et al., 2017 ). That implies that the hunting intensity leads to resource depletion of target species in sites closer to communities, especially in the nearest 5 km to settlements (Pérez‐Flores et al., 2022 ). In addition to clandestine hunting, the presence of human communities and local population density may also affect mammal occupancy through other indirect anthropogenic effects, such as increases in wildfires (Barlow & Peres, 2006 ), deforestation (Laurance et al., 2002 ), timber production, slash‐and‐burn monoculture and livestock (Beirne et al., 2019 ), which therefore, may also decrease fruit production and habitat use for native wildlife (Barlow & Peres, 2006 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The distribution of bushmeat mammals in unflooded forests of the Central Amazon is influenced by poaching proxies

de Souza Ferreira Neto,

Baccaro,

Phillips

et al. 2023

Ecology and Evolution

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Medium to large rainforest mammals are key conservation flagship groups that offer non‐redundant ecosystem functions, but anthropic pressures, such as illegal hunting, may strongly affect their occupancy in Amazonia. We combined camera traps and occupancy models to assess the influence of distance from human settlements, the number of families per settlement and the synergetic effect of the average weight of 27 species on the occupancy probability of mammals. Specifically, we classified mammal species according to the game preferences of hunters (i.e. a group of species depleted for bushmeat, a group of species hunted for retaliation and a group of non‐hunted species). We also accounted for the influence on the detection probability of each group of both the number of days each camera operated and the body weight of mammals. The occupancy probability of the bushmeat group (i.e. deer, peccaries, agoutis, pacas and armadillos) was lower at locations closer to human settlements. Still, the number of families correlated positively with occupancy, with the occupancy probability of the group being slightly higher at sites with more families. This difference was probably due to larger and more abundant crops and fruiting trees attracting wildlife at such sites. Conversely, the occupancy probability of the retaliation group (i.e. carnivores) and the non‐hunted group (i.e. opossums, spiny rats, squirrels and anteaters) were indifferent to anthropogenic stressors. The detection probability of the non‐hunted and particularly the most depleted species correlated negatively with body weight. This may suggest that larger species, especially those from the bushmeat group, are rarer or less abundant in the system, possibly because they are the preferable target of hunters. In the long term, locals will likely need to travel long distances to find harvest meat. Poaching also threatens food security since game bushmeat is an essential source of protein for isolated rural Amazonians.

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Does fear of humans predict anti-predator strategies in an ungulate hider species during fawning?

Faull,

Conteddu,

Griffin

et al. 2023

Preprint

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Humans are a major evolutionary force on wildlife via artificial selection. While often explored through the lens of extractive interactions (e.g., hunting) able to favour certain behavioural traits over others, the implications of non-extractive ones, such as wildlife feeding, remain under-studied. Research has recently shown that people tend to feed (and sometimes favour) a limited subset of bolder individuals within natural populations, although its dynamics and consequences are not fully clear. Using fallow deer living in a peri-urban setting as a model population, we studied whether mother deer that display reduced fear of humans and consistently approach them for food adopt weaker anti-predator strategies by selecting for fawning bedsites that are less concealed and closer to human hotspots, allowing them to take advantage of additional artificial feeding opportunities in comparison to shier mothers in this population. Our dataset encompassed 171 fawns from 109 mothers across 4 years. Contrary to our expectations, we found that mothers that regularly accepted food from humans selected for more concealed bedsites farther away from them, giving their offspring better protection while also taking advantage of additional artificial food during lactating. Our results show marked behavioural adaptation by a subset of females, making this the first time that the link between tendency to approach humans and strategies to protect offspring is explored. Given previous findings that these begging females also deliver heavier fawns at birth, our research adds a piece to the complex puzzle describing human manipulation of behaviour in natural populations and its fitness consequences.

show abstract

Jaguar’s Predation and Human Shield, a Tapir Story

Cited by 3 publications

References 68 publications

Does fear of humans predict anti-predator strategies in an ungulate hider species during fawning?

Does fear of humans predict anti-predator strategies in an ungulate hider species during fawning?

The distribution of bushmeat mammals in unflooded forests of the Central Amazon is influenced by poaching proxies

Does fear of humans predict anti-predator strategies in an ungulate hider species during fawning?

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