IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Tambling, C.J.; Wilsonm, J.W.; Bradford, P.; Scantlebury, M. | |
| Fine-scale differences in predicted and observed cheetah diet: does sexual dimorphism matter? | |
| 2014 South African Journal of Wildlife Research (44): 90-94 | |
In a world where the natural environment is being altered rapidly by the activities of a burgeoning human population, large predators (individuals with body mass greater than 21.5 kg which consume mainly meat; Carbone & Gittleman 2002) face increased competition for space and food in the remaining refuges they inhabit (Balme et al. 2009). As a consequence, understanding the resource requirements of large predators is imperative if we are to conserve these species. In the past decade, our understanding of large predators' prey preferences have advanced from a conglomeration of single site studies with limited connectivity to a field dedicated to the meta-analysis of predator resource acquisition (Hayward 2009). These meta-analyses have given us insight into the patterns driving prey preference in the suit of large African predators (Hayward et al. 2006). Additionally, these prey preference meta-analyses have allowed models to emerge that predict the suit of prey species that will be consumed by each large predator (Hayward et al. 2007). These predictions have been shown to work well at the population level; i.e. where the predator population composition approaches that observed in large natural ecosystems (Meena et al. 2011). However, in a South African context, these sex ratios are often not achievable when large predators are introduced onto small (50-100 km2) enclosed reserves (Lindsey et al. 2011) that form components of larger metapopulations (Davies-Mostert et al. 2009). Significantly, these small reserves form an integral component of large carnivore conservation in South Africa (Lindsey & Davies- Mostert 2009). Some large predators, i.e. cheetahs (_Acinonyx jubatus_) and lions (_Panthera leo_), display considerable sexual dimorphism in prey selection (Radloff & du Toit 2004; Bissett & Bernard 2007), bringing into question the validity of prey predictions when predator compositions do not match those observed in larger ecosystems. In this study we used a recently reintroduced population of cheetahs as a case study to: 1) confirm the sexual dimorphism in cheetah predation patterns and 2) assess whether any sex differences in diet influenced our ability to predict population, and sex specific prey observations. |
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