Human-dominated landscapes provide heterogeneous wildlife habitat. Conservation of habitat specialists, like red pandas Ailurus fulgens, inhabiting such landscapes is challenging. Therefore, information on resource us...Human-dominated landscapes provide heterogeneous wildlife habitat. Conservation of habitat specialists, like red pandas Ailurus fulgens, inhabiting such landscapes is challenging. Therefore, information on resource use across spatial and temporal scales could enable informed-decisionmaking with better conservation outcomes. We aimed to examine the effect of geo-physical, vegetation, and disturbance variables on fine-scalehabitat selection of red pandas in one such landscape. We equipped 10 red pandas with GPS collars in eastern Nepal in 2019 and monitoredthem for 1 year. Our analysis was based on a generalized-linear-mixed model. We found the combined effect of geo-physical, vegetation, anddisturbance variables resulted in differences in resource selection of red pandas and that the degree of response to these variables variedacross seasons. Human disturbances, especially road and cattle herding activities, affected habitat utilization throughout the year whereas othervariables were important only during restricted periods. For instance, geo-physical variables were influential in the premating and cub-rearingseasons while vegetation variables were important in all seasons other than premating. Red pandas selected steeper slopes with high solarinsolation in the premating season while they occupied elevated areas and preferred specific aspects in the cub-rearing season. Furthermore,the utilized areas had tall bamboo in the birthing and cub-rearing seasons while they also preferred diverse tree species and high shrub coverin the latter. Our study demonstrates the significance of season-specific management, suggests the importance of specific types of vegetationduring biologically crucial periods, and emphasizes the necessity to minimize disturbances throughout the year.展开更多
基金the University of Queensland’s Animal Ethics Committee(SAFS/133/19/NEPAL)the Department of Forests and Soil Conservation,Government of Nepal(DFSC-521/075/076 and DFSC-244/076/077).
文摘Human-dominated landscapes provide heterogeneous wildlife habitat. Conservation of habitat specialists, like red pandas Ailurus fulgens, inhabiting such landscapes is challenging. Therefore, information on resource use across spatial and temporal scales could enable informed-decisionmaking with better conservation outcomes. We aimed to examine the effect of geo-physical, vegetation, and disturbance variables on fine-scalehabitat selection of red pandas in one such landscape. We equipped 10 red pandas with GPS collars in eastern Nepal in 2019 and monitoredthem for 1 year. Our analysis was based on a generalized-linear-mixed model. We found the combined effect of geo-physical, vegetation, anddisturbance variables resulted in differences in resource selection of red pandas and that the degree of response to these variables variedacross seasons. Human disturbances, especially road and cattle herding activities, affected habitat utilization throughout the year whereas othervariables were important only during restricted periods. For instance, geo-physical variables were influential in the premating and cub-rearingseasons while vegetation variables were important in all seasons other than premating. Red pandas selected steeper slopes with high solarinsolation in the premating season while they occupied elevated areas and preferred specific aspects in the cub-rearing season. Furthermore,the utilized areas had tall bamboo in the birthing and cub-rearing seasons while they also preferred diverse tree species and high shrub coverin the latter. Our study demonstrates the significance of season-specific management, suggests the importance of specific types of vegetationduring biologically crucial periods, and emphasizes the necessity to minimize disturbances throughout the year.
