Mid-sized felids threatened by habitat degradation in Southeast Asia
Deforestation and poaching in Southeast Asia have driven a stark decline in the region's apex predators, including large felids like tigers and leopards. Meanwhile, some small felids thrive in the region's human-modified landscapes. The extent to which medium-sized felids cope with anthrop...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
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2023
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/170590 |
| _version_ | 1811677608866217984 |
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| author | Decœur, Henri Amir, Zachary Mendes, Calebe P. Moore, Jonathan H. Luskin, Matthew Scott |
| author2 | Asian School of the Environment |
| author_facet | Asian School of the Environment Decœur, Henri Amir, Zachary Mendes, Calebe P. Moore, Jonathan H. Luskin, Matthew Scott |
| author_sort | Decœur, Henri |
| collection | NTU |
| description | Deforestation and poaching in Southeast Asia have driven a stark decline in the region's apex predators, including large felids like tigers and leopards. Meanwhile, some small felids thrive in the region's human-modified landscapes. The extent to which medium-sized felids cope with anthropogenic disturbances remains poorly understood, but this information is crucial for the conservation of threatened felids and key trophic interactions that maintain high-diversity food webs. Here, we use the largest camera-trap dataset from Southeast Asia to conduct a multi-scale synthesis of the habitat associations of two cryptic felids, the Near-Threatened Asiatic golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) and the Endangered bay cat (Catopuma badia). Unlike many mesopredators, both species exhibited poor tolerance to habitat degradation (i.e. selective logging, edges or fragmentation). The golden cat was positively associated with forest patch size and elevation, and negatively associated with degraded forests, and the bay cat was negatively associated with human population density. Our habitat suitability model suggests that ongoing forest fragmentation and degradation have critically reduced suitable habitat for the golden cat, giving reason to suspect a population decline that calls for a revision of the species' IUCN Red List status to Vulnerable. There is also evidence that the bay cat may be more widely distributed in Borneo than previously thought, including in areas currently threatened by deforestation. Our results indicate both species face a high risk of becoming extirpated from many of the region's remaining forests. In areas where apex predators have been extirpated, these charismatic mid-sized felids can become umbrella species to protect forests with high biodiversity value. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T02:40:05Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/170590 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T02:40:05Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1705902023-09-25T15:30:35Z Mid-sized felids threatened by habitat degradation in Southeast Asia Decœur, Henri Amir, Zachary Mendes, Calebe P. Moore, Jonathan H. Luskin, Matthew Scott Asian School of the Environment Science::Biological sciences Mesopredator Deforestation Deforestation and poaching in Southeast Asia have driven a stark decline in the region's apex predators, including large felids like tigers and leopards. Meanwhile, some small felids thrive in the region's human-modified landscapes. The extent to which medium-sized felids cope with anthropogenic disturbances remains poorly understood, but this information is crucial for the conservation of threatened felids and key trophic interactions that maintain high-diversity food webs. Here, we use the largest camera-trap dataset from Southeast Asia to conduct a multi-scale synthesis of the habitat associations of two cryptic felids, the Near-Threatened Asiatic golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) and the Endangered bay cat (Catopuma badia). Unlike many mesopredators, both species exhibited poor tolerance to habitat degradation (i.e. selective logging, edges or fragmentation). The golden cat was positively associated with forest patch size and elevation, and negatively associated with degraded forests, and the bay cat was negatively associated with human population density. Our habitat suitability model suggests that ongoing forest fragmentation and degradation have critically reduced suitable habitat for the golden cat, giving reason to suspect a population decline that calls for a revision of the species' IUCN Red List status to Vulnerable. There is also evidence that the bay cat may be more widely distributed in Borneo than previously thought, including in areas currently threatened by deforestation. Our results indicate both species face a high risk of becoming extirpated from many of the region's remaining forests. In areas where apex predators have been extirpated, these charismatic mid-sized felids can become umbrella species to protect forests with high biodiversity value. Nanyang Technological University Published version The research was funded by the Smithsonian Institution 's ForestGEO program, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, the University of Queensland, National Geographic Society's Committee for the Research and Exploration award # 9384–13 and Matthew Scott Luskin was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award DECRA # DE210101440. In-kind support in was provided by FFI, TEAM, WCS, the Leuser International Foundation, and SEARRP. 2023-09-20T01:09:08Z 2023-09-20T01:09:08Z 2023 Journal Article Decœur, H., Amir, Z., Mendes, C. P., Moore, J. H. & Luskin, M. S. (2023). Mid-sized felids threatened by habitat degradation in Southeast Asia. Biological Conservation, 283, 110103-. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110103 0006-3207 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/170590 10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110103 2-s2.0-85160053975 283 110103 en Biological Conservation © 2023 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Science::Biological sciences Mesopredator Deforestation Decœur, Henri Amir, Zachary Mendes, Calebe P. Moore, Jonathan H. Luskin, Matthew Scott Mid-sized felids threatened by habitat degradation in Southeast Asia |
| title | Mid-sized felids threatened by habitat degradation in Southeast Asia |
| title_full | Mid-sized felids threatened by habitat degradation in Southeast Asia |
| title_fullStr | Mid-sized felids threatened by habitat degradation in Southeast Asia |
| title_full_unstemmed | Mid-sized felids threatened by habitat degradation in Southeast Asia |
| title_short | Mid-sized felids threatened by habitat degradation in Southeast Asia |
| title_sort | mid sized felids threatened by habitat degradation in southeast asia |
| topic | Science::Biological sciences Mesopredator Deforestation |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/170590 |
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