Mislabeled and Misunderstood: Large Mammal Distribution Underscores Ecological Significance of Agro-Pastoral "Wastelands" in India's Deccan Peninsula.

ABSTRACT: Multi-use landscapes are now recognized for their value in supporting biodiversity and aiding species conservation, including charismatic megafauna. However, semi-arid open-canopy human-use landscapes have faced multiple anthropogenic stressors over the past centuries and have received meager conservation attention, especially in South Asia. A growing body of evidence suggests that such ecosystems, even with intermittent human use, can provide habitats for globally threatened species and support their conservation. To understand the role of semi-arid multi-use landscapes in supporting populations of large-bodied wildlife in India's Deccan Peninsula, we used key informant interviews with pastoralists and a single-season single-species occupancy modeling framework and examined the distributi

SUBMITTER: Majgaonkar I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12795617 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature