Wild Ungulate Decision-Making and the Role of Tiny Refuges in Human-Dominated Landscapes.

ABSTRACT: Wildlife conservation in human-dominated landscapes requires that we understand how animals, when making habitat-use decisions, obtain diverse and dynamically occurring resources while avoiding risks, induced by both natural predators and anthropogenic threats. Little is known about the underlying processes that enable wild animals to persist in densely populated human-dominated landscapes, particularly in developing countries. In a complex, semi-arid, fragmented, human-dominated agricultural landscape, we analyzed the habitat-use of blackbuck, a large herbivore endemic to the Indian sub-continent. We hypothesized that blackbuck would show flexible habitat-use behaviour and be risk averse when resource quality in the landscape is high, and less sensitive to risk otherwise. Overall, blackbu

SUBMITTER: Krishna YC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4795686 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature