Jaguar interactions with pumas and prey at the northern edge of jaguars' range - PubMed (original) (raw)

Jaguar interactions with pumas and prey at the northern edge of jaguars' range

Carmina E Gutiérrez-González et al. PeerJ. 2017.

Abstract

We present the first study that evaluates jaguar-puma interactions in the arid lands of northern Mexico, where jaguars have their northernmost breeding population and both predators are persecuted for livestock depredation. We tested whether jaguars are the dominant species in this unique ecosystem, where: (1) pumas outnumber jaguars, (2) pumas are better adapted to arid environments, and (3) jaguars and pumas are of similar size. We analyzed four years of data with two approaches; a two species conditional occupancy model and an activity patterns analysis. We used camera location and prey presence as covariates for jaguar and puma detection and presence probabilities. We also explored overlap in activities of predators and prey. Where both species were detected, peccary presence was positively correlated with both jaguar and puma presence, whereas in areas where jaguars were detected but pumas were not, deer presence explained the probability of jaguar presence. We found that both predators were more likely to co-occur together than to be found independently, and so we rejected the hypothesis that jaguars were the dominant species in our study area. Predators were mainly nocturnal and their activity patterns overlapped by 60%. Jaguar, as compared with puma, overlapped more with deer and calves; puma overlapped with calves more than with other prey, suggesting a preference. We believe exploring predator relationships at different scales may help elucidate mechanisms that regulate their coexistence.

Keywords: Activity patterns; Jaguar; México; Panthera onca; Puma; Puma concolor; Sonora; Species interaction factor; Two species conditional occupancy model.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare there are no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1. Study area.

The study area was composed by the Northern Jaguar Reserve and 10 private cattle ranches. Because of the proximity of the cattle ranches with the private reserve, we considered all properties as a unique study area. The DEM used in this figure can be freely downloaded from

www.inegi.gob.mx

.

Figure 2

Figure 2. Overlap of daily activity patterns between pumas and jaguars in Sonora, Mexico by year.

Overlap is represented by the shaded area. Solid lines represent the activity pattern of pumas and dashed lines represent the activity pattern of jaguars. The vertical dashed lines represent the mean time of sunrise and sunset. Δ1 corresponds to the overlapping coefficient between species activity patterns.

Figure 3

Figure 3. Overlap of daily activity patterns between the jaguar and its main preys in Sonora, Mexico by year.

Overlap is represented by the shaded area. Solid lines represent jaguar activity pattern and dashed lines represent the prey activity patterns. Each column corresponds to one prey species and each row corresponds to the sampling year. The vertical dashed lines represent the mean time of sunrise and sunset. Δ1 corresponds to the overlapping coefficient between species activity patterns.

Figure 4

Figure 4. Overlap of daily activity patterns between the puma and its main preys in Sonora, Mexico by year.

Overlap is represented by the shaded area. Solid lines represent puma activity pattern and dashed lines represent the prey activity patterns. Each column corresponds to one prey species and each row corresponds to the sampling year. The vertical dashed lines represent the mean time of sunrise and sunset. Δ1 corresponds to the overlapping coefficient between species activity patterns.

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