Large carnivore core areas across landscape
Core areas of animals have been studied to address a wide range of
research queries (Hooten, Wilson, & Shivik 2008) such as social
information transmission (Darden Steffensen & Dabelsteen, 2008),
interspecific competition (Neale & Sacks, 2001), trophic cascades
(Prange & Gehrt, 2007), habitat selection (Chamberlain, Leopald, &
Conner 2003), reproductive success (Thompson, Kahlenberg, Gilby, &
Wrangham 2007) and territorial defense (Darden & Dabelsteen, 2008). Our
study reports multiple areas of intensive use or ‘cores’ for all the 4
carnivores across the landscape (Table 7). The number and size of core
areas across species did not show a significant difference but the
ranges were different. For species surviving in human altered landscapes
like the wolf and tigers outside PAs, the range of core area size was
the greatest whereas it was the least for the dholes.
Tigers have a minimum size requirement of core areas in and outside PAs
but there was high variation in core area size outside PAs which may be
influenced by availability of habitat patch. There is a positive
correlation (R2=0.90) between the number and perimeter
of core areas. In the fragmented landscape outside PAs, the number and
therefore the perimeter of core areas is high. Large carnivores like the
wolves and tigers outside PAs are likely to have a greater core area
perimeter which indicates higher chances of exposure to human induced
effect at interference at the perimeter of the most extensive used
habitat patches (Table 8).