Core area variation within and across species and habitats
All carnivores showed multiple areas of intensive use or cores in their home ranges. The mean number of core areas per individual was not significantly different between species (Table 5). The range of the core area sizes was greater for species outside PAs (tiger and wolf) in human altered landscapes. The spread was lowest for species inside PAs like dholes and leopards (Fig 2).
The number of core areas of tigers inside and outside PAs was significantly different (p=0.05) whereas the difference in size of core areas was not significant (p=0.43). Although the median value of core area size was higher for tigers inside PAs (4.00) in comparison to the tigers outside PAs (1.53), the range of core area size was greater for tigers outside PAs (0.55 km2 – 25.84 km2) than inside (0.65 km2-15.67 km2) (Table 6). This signifies that tigers have a minimum size requirement of core areas across PAs and non-PAs. However, outside PAs the use of core areas may be influenced by the size of the available habitat patch and habitat matrix.
The two social canids dhole and wolf have a comparable body size, but the size of core areas was completely different. Dholes are the only social canids found in Indian forest systems and share habitat with larger co-predators like tigers and leopards whereas wolves are found in human-modified landscape in a mosaic of grasslands, and agricultural land. Number of core areas of both canids did not differ significantly (p=0.46) but core area sizes were significantly different (p=0.004). Core areas of dholes were smaller with narrow ranges (0.6 km2-5.05 km2), whereas wolves exhibited a wide range of core sizes (0.68 km2 – 29.31 km2) similar to tigers in non-PAs.
Table 5 Mean number, size and perimeter of core areas of 4 large carnivores in India.