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Responses of carnivore assemblages to decentralized conservation approaches in a South African landscape

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Curveira_Santos_2021_JoAE_Responses_carnivore_assemblages_AAM.pdf (931.4Kb)
Date
01/2021
Author
Curveira-Santos, Gonçalo
Sutherland, Chris
Santos-Reis, Margarida
Swanepoel, Lourens H
Keywords
Camera-trap
Community occupancy model
Conservation planning
Hierarchical Bayesian models
Multi-species modelling
Natural resource management
Predator
Protected areas
QA Mathematics
QH301 Biology
DAS
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Abstract
1 Conservation efforts in South Africa play out across multi-use landscapes where formal protected areas coexist with private wildlife business (ecotourism and/or hunting) in a human-dominated matrix. Despite the persistence of highly diverse carnivore guilds, management idiosyncrasies are often orientated towards charismatic large predators and assemblage-level patterns remain largely unexplored. 2. We conducted an extensive camera-trap survey in a natural quasi-experimental setting in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We sampled across a protection gradient characterized by a provincial protected area (highest and formal protection status), a private ecotourism reserve, game ranches and traditional communal areas (lowest protected status). We evaluated assemblage-level and species-specific responses of free-ranging carnivores to the varying management contexts and associated environmental gradients. 3. Despite similar assemblage composition between management contexts, site-scale carnivore richness and occupancy rates were greater in the formal protected area than adjacent private reserve and game ranches. Carnivore occupancy was more similar between these private wildlife areas, although putative problem species were more common in the private reserve, and contrasted with depauperate assemblages in least protected communal lands. Variation in carnivore occupancy probabilities was largely driven by land use contexts, that is, the level and nature of protection, relative to underlying fine-scale landscape attributes (e.g. distance to conservation fences) or apex predator populations. 4. Synthesis and applications. Our findings provide convincing empirical support for the added value of multi-tenure conservation estates augmenting and connecting South Africa's protected areas. However, our emphasis on free-ranging carnivores exemplifies the importance of maintaining areas under long-term formal protection and the risks with viewing lucrative wildlife business as a conservation panacea. We suggest that unmanaged carnivore species be the formal components of carnivore reintroduction and recovery programmes to better gauge the complementary conservation role of South Africa's private land.
Citation
Curveira-Santos , G , Sutherland , C , Santos-Reis , M & Swanepoel , L H 2021 , ' Responses of carnivore assemblages to decentralized conservation approaches in a South African landscape ' , Journal of Applied Ecology , vol. 58 , no. 1 , pp. 92-103 . https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13726
Publication
Journal of Applied Ecology
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13726
ISSN
0021-8901
Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2020 British Ecological Society. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the author created accepted manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13726.
Description
Funding: African Institute for Conservation Ecology; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Grant Numbers: PD/BD/114037/2015, UID/BIA/00329/2019; National Geographic Society. Grant Number: EC-314R-18; Wild Tomorrow Fund; South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement. Grant Number: UID: 107099&115040.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/24246

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