Biodiversity and Conservation

Biography

Biography: Aniruddha Majumder

Abstract

Predation ecology of large sympatric carnivores i.e. tiger, leopard and dhole were studied between January 2007 and June 2010 in Pench Tiger Reserve Madhya Pradesh, India. Both line transect and vehicle transect methods were used to estimate population abundance, structure and sex ratios of wild ungulates i.e. chital, sambar, nilgai, gaur and wild pig. The feeding ecology of large carnivores has been studied using identifying kills and analysis of scats. The age–sex class distribution of each ungulate species in the kill data was compared with the corresponding population age–sex distribution recorded from line transects and vehicle transects. All three large carnivores preferred medium-sized prey species, e.g. chital. The observed adult sex ratio (female: male) was found to be skewed towards females for all ungulates. The estimated dietary overlap between tiger and leopard was 91% in cold and 88% in hot season, between tiger and dhole 97% in cold and 99% in hot season and between leopard and dhole 96% in cold and 88% in hot season. Tiger and leopard showed two activity peaks, evening (18:01- 22:00 hrs) and early morning (02:01 – 06:00 hrs), dhole had two activity peaks, morning (06.01-10.00 hrs) and afternoon (14.01-18.00 hrs). A significant difference was also observed when comparing different health conditions of prey species predated by the three large carnivores. Despite the high dietary overlap the co-existence of these sympatric carnivores in this tropical deciduous forest was attributed to availability of high densities of wild prey species and temporal utilization of prey resources. The observed difference in prey choice as per their body size is a strategy adopted by large carnivores to partition prey resources in this human dominated landscape, thus increasing the potential to avoid intra-guild competition