干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Understanding the distribution and habitat preference of threatened species is essential for their conservation. We conducted the first systematic camera trap survey of the Vulnerable northern tiger cat Leopardus tigrinus in Caatinga drylands (Brazil) and tested how its occupancy and detectability patterns are affected by environmental and anthropogenic factors. Species detection-non-detection data, obtained by 7263 camera-days distributed throughout 187 sampling sites on ten Caatinga landscapes, were used to evaluate species detectability and occupancy according to ten environmental and anthropo-genic predictors. We built seven detection models and 30 hierarchical occupancy models that have been ranked based on the Akaike Information Criterion. The estimated average occupancy of 0.46 was 38% higher than the naive occupancy rate (0.34). Species occupancy was higher in locations with greater forest cover and at greater distance to agrarian settlements. Hunting and persecution of northern tiger cats by residents and a possible reduction of their natural prey by hunting may explain the result. On the contrary, more forested environments may represent higher-quality habitats providing greater availability of prey and shelters and protection against anthropogenic threats and extreme temperatures. These results improve the understanding of the ecology of a threatened and poorly known small cat, and they can guide conservation actions such as the creation of dense forest protected areas and provide information for mitigating human-carnivore conflict.