Title
The Interaction of Prey Density and Landscape Vulnerability Shapes the Home Range Use Patterns of Amur Tigers
Author(s)
Petrunenko, Y.;Montgomery, R.;Seryodkin, I.;Zaumyslova, O.;Miquelle, D.;Macdonald, D.
Published
2015
Abstract
Theoretical and empirical research suggests that home range use patterns of carnivores are driven by the availability of their prey. Availability depends on prey density, dispersion, and accessibility. Thus, carnivores may select habitat where prey are particularly dense or habitat where prey are particularly vulnerable because of the configuration of landscape attributes. We assessed the influence of prey availability and vulnerability, mapped separately for each of the primary prey species (sika deer, Cervus nippon; red deer, C. elaphus; wild boar, Sus scrofa), on the home range use patterns of Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) in Far East Russia over 21 consecutive winters. For accessing availability, we fit negative binomial resource selection functions to the ungulate survey data to predict the relative intensity of use for each of the three primary prey species. The relative vulnerability of prey to tiger predation as a result of landscape structure was defined by fitting a kill site model as a function of landscape attributes alone. We found that home range use patterns were most affected by the interaction of red deer density and red deer vulnerability in the landscape, as well as wild boar density. Models employing parameters specific for preferred prey were more robust than models that summed values across all primary prey species. These results suggest that the home range use patterns of solitary Amur tigers are shaped by patterns of distribution and vulnerability of preferred prey
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PUB15662