IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
| Infante Varela, J.D. | |
| New interactions in a mammalian community: introduced lagomorphs sustain native carnivores in the Andes of central Chile | |
| 2019 Full Book | |
Introduced lagomorphs are known to generate new predator-prey interactions. These species have been mentioned to be detrimental as facilitate plant invasions, cause exploitative competition, and cause apparent competition. New communities are a widespread phenomenon and new interactions occurring in these systems have not been well addressed. We aim to assess new interactions associations with native carnivores spatio-temporal distributional patterns in central Chilean Andes, in relation to native and less abundant preys. During autumn-winter seasons from 2013-2017, we sampled and analyzed puma and culpeo fox diets, examined daily activity pattern overlaps between native predators and their prey, and used dynamic hierarchical models to find relevant interactions driving occurrence, abundance, and dynamics of culpeo fox and puma. Introduced lagomorphs comprised 10.3% of total prey items in culpeo fox diet, while 62% for puma. Higher activity pattern overlap for culpeo fox was found with rabbit (0.88) and hare (0.86), similar results for puma and both lagomorphs (0.79). According to the best models, only introduced preys formed relevant interactions with native predators: rabbit relative abundance increased culpeo fox relative abundance, while hare relative abundance increased occupancy probability of puma. Hare also increased survival probability of culpeo fox and decreased extinction probability of puma. This is the first study in South America to assess mammal community interactions with dynamic hierarchical models, and to provide evidence on the relevance of introduced lagomorphs for native carnivore's subsistence in central Chilean Andes. Implications of new interactions on conservation of native prey and predator species are discussed. |
|
 |
PDF files are only accessible to Friends of the Cat Group. Joining Friends of the Cat Group gives you unlimited access and downloads in the Cat SG Library for one year, and allows you to receive our newsletter Cat News (2 regular issues per year plus special issues). More information how to join here |
(c) IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group ( IUCN - The World Conservation Union) |