Contrasting responses of large carnivores to land use management across an Asian montane landscape in Iran
Abstract Land-use change has led to substantial range contractions for many species. Such contractions are particularly acute for wide-ranging large carnivores in Asia’s high altitude areas, which are marked by high spatiotemporal variability in resources. Current conservation planning for human-dom...
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Springer Science and Business Media LLC
2021
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02290-9 https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10531-021-02290-9.pdf https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10531-021-02290-9/fulltext.html |
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crspringernat:10.1007/s10531-021-02290-9 2023-05-15T15:51:16+02:00 Contrasting responses of large carnivores to land use management across an Asian montane landscape in Iran Mohammadi, Alireza Lunnon, Christopher Moll, Remington J. Tan, Cedric Kai Wei Hobeali, Kaveh Behnoud, Pouyan Moghadas, Peyman Macdonald, David W. Farhadinia, Mohammad S. People’s Trust for Endangered Species IdeaWild Rufford Foundation 2021 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02290-9 https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10531-021-02290-9.pdf https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10531-021-02290-9/fulltext.html en eng Springer Science and Business Media LLC https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 CC-BY Biodiversity and Conservation volume 30, issue 13, page 4023-4037 ISSN 0960-3115 1572-9710 Nature and Landscape Conservation Ecology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics journal-article 2021 crspringernat https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02290-9 2022-01-04T16:31:45Z Abstract Land-use change has led to substantial range contractions for many species. Such contractions are particularly acute for wide-ranging large carnivores in Asia’s high altitude areas, which are marked by high spatiotemporal variability in resources. Current conservation planning for human-dominated landscapes often takes one of two main approaches: a “coexistence” (land sharing) approach or a “separation” (land sparing) approach. In this study, we evaluated the effects of land-use management on a guild of large carnivores in a montane ecosystem located in northeastern Iran. We used interview surveys to collect data on Persian leopard Panthera pardus saxicolor and grey wolf Canis lupus and modeled the areas occupied by these species in a Bayesian framework. After accounting for imperfect detection, we found that wolves had a higher probability of occupying the study area than leopards (82%; 95% CI 73–90% vs. 63%; 95% CI 53–73%). Importantly, each predator showed contrasting response to land-use management. National Parks (i.e. human-free areas) had a positive association with leopard occupancy ( α National Park = 2.56, 95% CI 0.22–5.77), in contrast to wolves, which displayed a negative association with National Parks ( α National Park = − 1.62, 95% CI − 2.29 to 0.31). An opposite pattern was observed for human-dominated areas (i.e. Protected Areas and Communal Lands), where occupancy was higher for wolves but lower for leopards. Our study suggests that to protect these large carnivores, a combination of land sharing and land sparing approaches is desirable within Iran montane landscapes. Any recovery program for big cats in Iranian mountains, and likely similar mountainous landscapes in west Asia, should take into account other sympatric carnivores and how they can affect adjacent human communities. For example, conflict mitigation and compensation efforts are required to include the guild of large carnivores, instead of solely targeting the charismatic big cats. Article in Journal/Newspaper Canis lupus Springer Nature (via Crossref) Biodiversity and Conservation 30 13 4023 4037 |
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Open Polar |
collection |
Springer Nature (via Crossref) |
op_collection_id |
crspringernat |
language |
English |
topic |
Nature and Landscape Conservation Ecology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics |
spellingShingle |
Nature and Landscape Conservation Ecology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Mohammadi, Alireza Lunnon, Christopher Moll, Remington J. Tan, Cedric Kai Wei Hobeali, Kaveh Behnoud, Pouyan Moghadas, Peyman Macdonald, David W. Farhadinia, Mohammad S. Contrasting responses of large carnivores to land use management across an Asian montane landscape in Iran |
topic_facet |
Nature and Landscape Conservation Ecology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics |
description |
Abstract Land-use change has led to substantial range contractions for many species. Such contractions are particularly acute for wide-ranging large carnivores in Asia’s high altitude areas, which are marked by high spatiotemporal variability in resources. Current conservation planning for human-dominated landscapes often takes one of two main approaches: a “coexistence” (land sharing) approach or a “separation” (land sparing) approach. In this study, we evaluated the effects of land-use management on a guild of large carnivores in a montane ecosystem located in northeastern Iran. We used interview surveys to collect data on Persian leopard Panthera pardus saxicolor and grey wolf Canis lupus and modeled the areas occupied by these species in a Bayesian framework. After accounting for imperfect detection, we found that wolves had a higher probability of occupying the study area than leopards (82%; 95% CI 73–90% vs. 63%; 95% CI 53–73%). Importantly, each predator showed contrasting response to land-use management. National Parks (i.e. human-free areas) had a positive association with leopard occupancy ( α National Park = 2.56, 95% CI 0.22–5.77), in contrast to wolves, which displayed a negative association with National Parks ( α National Park = − 1.62, 95% CI − 2.29 to 0.31). An opposite pattern was observed for human-dominated areas (i.e. Protected Areas and Communal Lands), where occupancy was higher for wolves but lower for leopards. Our study suggests that to protect these large carnivores, a combination of land sharing and land sparing approaches is desirable within Iran montane landscapes. Any recovery program for big cats in Iranian mountains, and likely similar mountainous landscapes in west Asia, should take into account other sympatric carnivores and how they can affect adjacent human communities. For example, conflict mitigation and compensation efforts are required to include the guild of large carnivores, instead of solely targeting the charismatic big cats. |
author2 |
People’s Trust for Endangered Species IdeaWild Rufford Foundation |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Mohammadi, Alireza Lunnon, Christopher Moll, Remington J. Tan, Cedric Kai Wei Hobeali, Kaveh Behnoud, Pouyan Moghadas, Peyman Macdonald, David W. Farhadinia, Mohammad S. |
author_facet |
Mohammadi, Alireza Lunnon, Christopher Moll, Remington J. Tan, Cedric Kai Wei Hobeali, Kaveh Behnoud, Pouyan Moghadas, Peyman Macdonald, David W. Farhadinia, Mohammad S. |
author_sort |
Mohammadi, Alireza |
title |
Contrasting responses of large carnivores to land use management across an Asian montane landscape in Iran |
title_short |
Contrasting responses of large carnivores to land use management across an Asian montane landscape in Iran |
title_full |
Contrasting responses of large carnivores to land use management across an Asian montane landscape in Iran |
title_fullStr |
Contrasting responses of large carnivores to land use management across an Asian montane landscape in Iran |
title_full_unstemmed |
Contrasting responses of large carnivores to land use management across an Asian montane landscape in Iran |
title_sort |
contrasting responses of large carnivores to land use management across an asian montane landscape in iran |
publisher |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02290-9 https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10531-021-02290-9.pdf https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10531-021-02290-9/fulltext.html |
genre |
Canis lupus |
genre_facet |
Canis lupus |
op_source |
Biodiversity and Conservation volume 30, issue 13, page 4023-4037 ISSN 0960-3115 1572-9710 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02290-9 |
container_title |
Biodiversity and Conservation |
container_volume |
30 |
container_issue |
13 |
container_start_page |
4023 |
op_container_end_page |
4037 |
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1766386390558310400 |