Affiliation:
1. School of Biological Sciences University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland Australia
2. School of Environmental Science and Engineering Southern University of Science and Technology Shenzhen China
3. School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Norwich UK
4. Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland Australia
Abstract
AbstractSoutheast Asia supports the greatest diversity of felids globally, but this diversity is threatened by the severe forest loss and degradation occurring in the region. The response of felids to disturbances appears to differ depending on their ecology. For example, the largely terrestrial and nocturnal leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) thrives near forest edges and in oil palm plantations where it hunts rodents (Muridae) at night, thereby avoiding human activity peaks. Conversely, we hypothesized that the sympatric and similar‐sized marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata) would respond negatively to edges and relatively open oil palm plantations as they are more arboreal than leopard cats, rely on tree connectivity for hunting, and are diurnal so have less potential to temporally avoid humans. We used camera trapping from Southeast Asia to test habitat associations at multiple spatial scales using zero‐inflated Poisson generalized linear mixed models and hierarchical occupancy modeling. We found that marbled cats were positively associated with large intact forests and, in contrast to leopard cats, negatively associated with oil palm plantations. Furthermore, we found preliminary evidence suggesting marbled cats may adapt their diel activity to become more crepuscular in degraded forests, likely shifting their activity to avoid humans. These findings suggest that the marbled cat's International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List conservation status should potentially be upgraded from Near Threatened to Vulnerable, matching other forest‐dependent felids in the region. We posit our findings may be generalizable such that semi‐arboreal and diurnal felids could face greater threats from habitat degradation than their terrestrial and nocturnal relatives.
Funder
Australian Research Council
Nanyang Technological University
Smithsonian Institution
University of Queensland
Subject
Ecology,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Cited by
7 articles.
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