Large carnivore core areas across landscape
Core areas of animals have been studied to address a wide range of research queries (Hooten, Wilson, & Shivik 2008) such as social information transmission (Darden Steffensen & Dabelsteen, 2008), interspecific competition (Neale & Sacks, 2001), trophic cascades (Prange & Gehrt, 2007), habitat selection (Chamberlain, Leopald, & Conner 2003), reproductive success (Thompson, Kahlenberg, Gilby, & Wrangham 2007) and territorial defense (Darden & Dabelsteen, 2008). Our study reports multiple areas of intensive use or ‘cores’ for all the 4 carnivores across the landscape (Table 7). The number and size of core areas across species did not show a significant difference but the ranges were different. For species surviving in human altered landscapes like the wolf and tigers outside PAs, the range of core area size was the greatest whereas it was the least for the dholes.
Tigers have a minimum size requirement of core areas in and outside PAs but there was high variation in core area size outside PAs which may be influenced by availability of habitat patch. There is a positive correlation (R2=0.90) between the number and perimeter of core areas. In the fragmented landscape outside PAs, the number and therefore the perimeter of core areas is high. Large carnivores like the wolves and tigers outside PAs are likely to have a greater core area perimeter which indicates higher chances of exposure to human induced effect at interference at the perimeter of the most extensive used habitat patches (Table 8).