Hierarchical multi-species modeling of carnivore responses to hunting, habitat and prey in a West African protected area.

ABSTRACT: Protected areas (PAs) are a cornerstone of global efforts to shield wildlife from anthropogenic impacts, yet their effectiveness at protecting wide-ranging species prone to human conflict--notably mammalian carnivores--is increasingly in question. An understanding of carnivore responses to human-induced and natural changes in and around PAs is critical not only to the conservation of threatened carnivore populations, but also to the effective protection of ecosystems in which they play key functional roles. However, an important challenge to assessing carnivore communities is the often infrequent and imperfect nature of survey detections. We applied a novel hierarchical multi-species occupancy model that accounted for detectability and spatial autocorrelation to data from 224 camera trap s

SUBMITTER: Burton AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3364199 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature