Landscape Use and Co-Occurrence Patterns of Neotropical Spotted Cats

Abstract

Small felids influence ecosystem dynamics through prey and plant population changes. Although most of these species are threatened, they are accorded one of the lowest research efforts of all felids, and we lack basic information about them. Many felids occur in sympatry, where intraguild competition is frequent. Therefore, assessing the role of interspecific interactions along with the relative importance of landscape characteristics is necessary to understand how these species co-occur in space. Here, we selected three morphologically similar and closely related species of small Neotropical cats to evaluate the roles of interspecific interactions, geomorphometry, environmental, and anthropogenic landscape characteristics on their habitat use. We collected data with camera trapping and scat sampling in a large protected Atlantic forest remnant (35,000 ha). Throughout occupancy modeling we investigated whether these species occur together more or less frequently than would be expected by chance, while dealing with imperfect detection and incorporating possible habitat preferences into the models. We used occupancy as a measure of their habitat use. Although intraguild competition can be an important determinant of carnivore assemblages, in our system, we did not find evidence that one species affects the habitat use of the other. Evidence suggested that proximity to the nature reserve (a more protected area) was a more important driver of Neotropical spotted cats’ occurrence than interspecific interactions or geomorphometry and environmental landscape characteristics—even though our entire study area is under some type of protection. This suggests that small felids can be sensitive to the area protection status, emphasizing the importance of maintaining and creating reserves and other areas with elevated protection for the proper management and conservation of the group.

When habitat matters: Habitat preferences can modulate co-occurrence patterns of similar sympatric species

“…Our results corroborate findings in other closely related species, such as snakes [4], salamanders [14], and small carnivores [31]. By exploring habitat preferences and co-occurrence patterns simultaneously, we were able to define the effects of habitat and achieve more accurate estimation of species interactions while overcoming issues related to imperfect detection with occupancy models.…”

Species geographical co‐occurrence and the effect of Grinnellian and Eltonian niche partitioning: The case of a Neotropical felid assemblage

“…The high degree of geographic overlap observed between the studied felid species, particularly between those of similar body size such as the ocelot, jaguarondi and margay, is striking considering that these species not only co-occur widely among them but they also do so with other felid (Clavijo & Ramírez, 2009) and carnivore species across their entire distributions, which would imply potential competition among these species given their carnivore diets but that is not supported by our findings. In fact, throughout the Neotropics, it is common to find three or more of our studied felid species coexisting locally (e.g., Chinchilla, 1997;Farrell et al, 2000;Konecny, 1989;Nagy-Reis et al, 2017;Rocha-Mendes, Mikich, Quadros, & Pedro, 2010). Indeed, the high degree of geographic overlap observed in our study seems to be common for felids in several places (Hayward & Kerley, 2008;Hearn et al, 2018;Nagy-Reis et al, 2017) in which, unlike to what is observed for canids, no changes in density have been observed in response to the dominance of species of larger size (Newsome et al, 2017).…”

“…Several felid studies have shown that diet, activity pattern and behavioral flexibility allow felid species to coexist while avoiding competition (Hayward & Kerley, ; Hearn et al, ; Migliorini, Peters, Favarini, & Kasper, ). For instance, for Neotropical felid species, the high similarity in diet (Farrell, Roman, & Sunquist, ), habitat use (Nagy‐Reis, Nichols, Chiarello, Ribeiro, & Setz, ) and geographic overlap (Clavijo & Ramírez, ; Sánchez‐Cordero et al, ), suggest that such ecological flexibility favors species coexisting through high Eltonian and Grinnellian niche overlap and thus low partitioning.…”

“…In addition, there is considerable information on their particular diets across the Neotropics (Booth-Binczik et al, 2013;Chinchilla, 1997;Moreno, Kays, & Samudio, 2006), allowing the characterization of at least one aspect of their Eltonian niches; their dietary preferences. Considering the high similarity in diet and habitat use among Neotropical felids (Farrell et al, 2000;Nagy-Reis et al, 2017) and the high degree of geographical overlap among our five species (Clavijo & Ramírez, 2009), we expected that (a) they will present a high degree of climatic overlap, although this will be less pronounced than their observed geographic overlap given that species can co-occur in the same geographic space but use the available climatic conditions differently (Broennimann et al, 2012). Also, considering that felines are opportunistic predators and obligate carnivores with 80% or more of their diets being meat (Migliorini et al, 2018) and that such diet is highly related to their body sizes (Tucker & Rogers, 2014), we expected them to (b) present high overlap in their diets.…”

Competition and specialization in an African forest carnivore community

“…Two-species occupancy modeling assists in the study of resource partitioning influenced by competition (MacKenzie, Bailey, & Nichols, 2004;MacKenzie et al, 2006;Richmond, Hines, & Beissinger, 2010). These techniques have provided important insights into habitat requirements, response to human activities, and interspecific community dynamics in a number of ecosystems (Farris, Kelly, Karpanty, & Ratelolahy, 2016;Gompper et al, 2016;Nagy-Reis, Nichols, Chiarello, Ribeiro, & Setz, 2017;Schuette, Wagner, Wagner, & Creel, 2013).…”