Spatial and Temporal Interactions of Sympatric Jaguars (<i>Panthera onca</i>) and Pumas<i>(Puma concolor)</i>in a Neotropical Forest

Harmsen, Bart J.; Foster, Rebecca J.; Silver, Scott C.; Ostro, Linde E. T.; Doncaster, C. Patrick

doi:10.1644/08-mamm-a-140r.1

Cited by 152 publications

(172 citation statements)

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“…Firstly, although these man-made sites facilitated cougar movement, the closeness to the place where fires occurred, made the sites less favorable. In addition to environmental factors, we should consider the presence of co-predators, and the selection of most favorable environments by dominant species such as the jaguar (Harmsen, Foster, Silver, Ostro, & Doncaster, 2009;Romero-Muñoz, Maffe, Cuéllar, & Noss, 2010). Secondly, roads into the Reserve are not very much used by humans, which may explain why cougars use them, since cougar do avoid road stretches frequently used by humans (Dickson & Beier, 2002;Rodríguez-Soto et al, 2013), a trend that contrasts with their usage of paths providing tree cover (Lira & Naranjo, 2003).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecology of Puma concolor (Carnivora: Felidae) in a mexican tropical forest: adaptation to environmental disturbances

Ávila-Nájera

Chávez

Pérez-Elizalde

et al. 2017

RBT

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Worldwide big cats are at risk of extinction, and anthropogenic factors and natural habitat disturbances represent the biggest threats for their survival. It is essential to know the natural resources use by these predators and the way these big felids can adapt to changes. It is unknown how the puma (Puma concolor) selects and uses resources, what environmental factors determine its presence and how this species is affected by natural disturbances in Mexican tropical forests. This study was performed in the Eden ecological reserve and surroundings, in the North of Quintana Roo, Mexico, an area dominated by tropical semideciduous (medium forest) and secondary forest (acahual). Camera samplings were carried out during 2008, and from 2010 to 2012. Habitat variables, activity patterns and species associations were also spatially and temporally analyzed using achi-squared test and overlapping coefficients. General Linear Models (GLM) were used in order to determine which variables influence the presence of cougars in the study area. Cougars used vegetation and paths in different proportions as the availability of these resources. The years with more changes (P < 0.05) were 2008 and 2011. This predator was active throughout the day, but changed its activity patterns over the years. The cougar was spatio-temporally associated with six mammals and two big terrestrial birds: Pecari tajacu (∆ = 0.52), Meleagris ocellata (∆ = 0.55), Crax rubra (∆ = 0.58), Didelphis sp. (∆ = 0.64), Mazama temama (∆ = 0.66), Leopardus pardalis (∆ = 0.68), Dasypus novemcinctus (∆ = 0.73) and Panthera onca (∆ = 0.87). After testing 90 GLM models, the model with a lower AIC value described the activity patterns of prey and co-predators. The vegetation and water in the reserve were important variables for the cougar. However the variables that determined and modified the presence of the species were activity patterns of co-predators and the potential preys. The factors that negatively affected the presence of the species were fire, human presence, and habitat displacement to less favorable habitats to avoid jaguar. Rev. Biol. Trop. 66(1): 78-90. Epub 2018 March 01.Key words: acahual, activity patterns, associated species, cougar, environmental variables, fair, human effect, tropical semideciduous forests.Carnivore decline and local extinctions are tragic, and they can produce effects that reverberate across entire ecosystems (Hunter, 2011). To know the environmental variables that affect the ecological role of wildlife is a clue about factors influencing carnivore population size and dynamics, and the role of resource limitation (a bottom-up process; Laundre & Hernández, 2010). For conservation purposes, it is essential to determine how species respond to habitat disturbance; for example, fire has a strong influence on forest structure; it has been associated with the simplification of forest structure (Collins, 2012) and animal communities can be affected by fire via direct mortality, or indirectly through the alteration of habitat r...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecology of Puma concolor (Carnivora: Felidae) in a mexican tropical forest: adaptation to environmental disturbances

Ávila-Nájera

Chávez

Pérez-Elizalde

et al. 2017

RBT

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“…Detecting terrestrial carnivores can be a challenge, especially in vast and densely vegetated protected areas, due to their secretive and mainly nocturnal behaviour and the low population densities of most species. Camera trapping has proved to be one of the most useful tools for wildlife surveys as it is non-invasive and provides information on cryptic and inconspicuous species (Harmsen et al, 2009;Sarmento et al, 2009;Surnato et al, 2013). Data obtained from camera trapping can be used to study several topics of animal ecology such as inventories (Srbek-Araujo & Chiarello, 2005;Tobler et al, 2008), site occupancy (Mackenzie & Royle, 2005;O'Connell et al, 2006;Rich et al, 2013), patterns of spatial partitioning among species (Sarmento et al, 2011;Sollmann et al, 2012), temporal interactions between species as well as activity patterns (Foster et al, 2013;Frey et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Camera traps as a tool for Carnivore conservation in a mosaic of Protected Areas in the Pantanal wetlands, Brazil

Porfírio¹,

Foster²,

Sarmento³

et al. 2018

Nat. Cons. Res.

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Although known globally for its biodiversity, only around 5% of the Brazilian Pantanal is protected. The Network for Protection and Conservation of Amolar Mountain Ridge is an informal initiative that legally protects over 2000 km 2 of the Pantanal biome. Several camera-trapping surveys were carried out at Amolar Mountain Ridge from August 2011 to September 2013 in order to increase our knowledge of the species occurrence and its ecological requirements. The aims of this study were : 1) to inventory the carnivore species occurring within this network of protected areas; 2) to describe their activity patterns and 3) to discuss threats for those species' conservation in the region. We used the Kernel density method to describe the species' activity patterns. We obtained 764 records (from 12703 camera-days) of eight carnivores, including endangered species in Brazil, such as the jaguar (Panthera onca), puma (Puma concolor), and ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), that were among the most frequently recorded by camera traps. The other species detected were the South America coati (Nasua nasua), the tayra (Eira barbara), the crab-eating raccoon (Procyon cancrivorus) and the jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi). We provided information on activity patterns of the jaguar and puma, which exhibited cathemeral activity patterns, on the ocelot and crab-eating fox, which were mostly nocturnal, and on the Southern coati and jaguarundi, which were diurnal. Scansorial and species that occur naturally in low densities as the tayra and the crab-eating raccoon were difficult to be detected with the used camera trapping setting. However, due to the natural characteristics of the study area, camera trapping is among the most appropriate tools for providing data about carnivores and their prey. This information is essential to delineate conservation plans for Amolar Mountain Ridge.

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“…Adult jaguars are firmly regarded as solitary hunters (Harmsen et al 2009). They may maintain exclusive ranges (Azevedo and Murray 2007), although the majority of studies emphasize varying degrees of intrasexual and intersexual range overlap (Rabinowitz and Nottingham 1986;Cavalcanti and Gese 2009;Harmsen et al 2009). Some of the individuals that we observed cannot be assigned with certainty into any of the social categories in which sharing of carcasses might reasonably be expected.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, when we recorded multiple jaguars scavenging on the same carcass we classified each event according to whether or not it involved individuals with direct relationships. Direct relations could be defined as: A) when a female has cubs, B) when the cubs leave their mother, but can remain together for a period of time, and C) when a female is in estrous and walks with a male at her side (Sunquist and Sunquist 1989;Harmsen et al 2009). In contrast, we considered that the individuals are unrelated when they do not demonstrate any family or reproductive relationship (Sunquist and Sunquist 1989;Harmsen et al 2009).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Direct relations could be defined as: A) when a female has cubs, B) when the cubs leave their mother, but can remain together for a period of time, and C) when a female is in estrous and walks with a male at her side (Sunquist and Sunquist 1989;Harmsen et al 2009). In contrast, we considered that the individuals are unrelated when they do not demonstrate any family or reproductive relationship (Sunquist and Sunquist 1989;Harmsen et al 2009). If the individuals are related directly, the sharing of kills is not a surprising fact, and for this reason it is important to establish if prey sharing is happening in another context.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Scavenging on sea turtle carcasses by multiple Jaguars in northwestern Costa Rica

Escobar-Lasso

Gil-Fernández

Herrera

et al. 2016

Therya

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Information on scavenging by jaguars is scarce, dispersed and little documented in the scientific literature, producing a shallow understanding of this phenomenon. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to describe the behavior of multiple jaguars scavenging on single carcasses of olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) that died by jaguar predation. The study was conducted at two beaches (Naranjo and Nancite) within the Santa Rosa National Park, Costa Rica. We carried out morning walks on Naranjo and Nancite beaches. We set up camera traps to capture the full extent of the feeding behavior on fresh jaguar-predated turtles. We recorded two scavenging events. The jaguars involved in the two scavenging events dragged or tried to drag the sea turtle carcass to a new location. This behavior could suggest the presence of intraspecific kleptoparasitism. However, further investigation of this type is required to determine the existence of kleptoparasitism, and also to get a deeper understanding of scavenging in jaguars and its relation to prey availability.La información sobre el carroñeo por múltiples jaguares es escasa, dispersa y poco documentada en la literatura científica, esto produce un entendimiento superficial del fenómeno. Por lo tanto, el objetivo de este trabajo es describir el comportamiento de varios jaguares que carroñean sobre un mismo cadáver de tortuga lora (Lepidochelys olivacea) que murieron por la depredación de jaguar. El estudio se realizó en dos playas (Naranjo y Nancite) dentro del Parque Nacional Santa Rosa, Costa Rica. Hemos llevado a cabo caminatas diurnas en las playas Naranjo y Nancite. Instalamos cámaras trampa para capturar toda la extensión de la conducta alimentaria de jaguar al depredar tortugas marinas. Se registraron dos eventos de carroñeo. Todos los jaguares que participan en los dos eventos de carroñeo intentaron robar y esconder el cadáver de la tortuga marina. Este comportamiento sugiere la presencia de cleptoparasitismo intraespecífico, sin embargo, se requiere más investigación de este tipo para determinar si el cleptoparasitismo existe y, además, lograr un entendimiento más profundo del carroñeo en jaguares y sus relaciones con la disponibilidad y abundancia de las presas.

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Spatial and Temporal Interactions of Sympatric Jaguars (Panthera onca) and Pumas(Puma concolor)in a Neotropical Forest

Cited by 152 publications

References 18 publications

Ecology of Puma concolor (Carnivora: Felidae) in a mexican tropical forest: adaptation to environmental disturbances

Ecology of Puma concolor (Carnivora: Felidae) in a mexican tropical forest: adaptation to environmental disturbances

Camera traps as a tool for Carnivore conservation in a mosaic of Protected Areas in the Pantanal wetlands, Brazil

Scavenging on sea turtle carcasses by multiple Jaguars in northwestern Costa Rica

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