Landscape-scale space use
Spotted hyena 50% and 95% home ranges (Figure 1) comprised between 6.06-27.29 km2 ((x̅ = 11.6) and 31.38-132.91 km2 (x̅ = 61), respectively. Dry season 50% and 95% home ranges comprised 5.88-23.73 km2 (x̅ = 10.99) and 30.71-143.59 km2 (x̅ = 87.89), respectively. Rainy season 50% and 95% home ranges comprised 6.06-23.85 km2 (x̅ = 11.46) and 28.53-111.92 km2(x̅ = 58.08), respectively. The proportion of 95% home range overlap among different clans spanned between 0.108 and 0.317.
For all spatial analyses, all variables were retained for global models after testing for pairwise correlation (maximum correlation was 0.52, while most pairwise correlations were below 0.2). The global model, including all covariates for the RSFs, revealed selection for higher NDVI, roads, lakes, verified livestock predation, and areas of participatory mapped risk from hyenas, and against elevation, steep slopes, rivers, boundaries, and areas of participatory mapped livestock predation (Table 2). Of these, selection for distance to participatory mapped livestock predation (i.e., greater distances away from these regions; β = 0.271, p < 0.001) and selection against distance to verified livestock predation (i.e., closer distances to these regions; β = -0.255, p < 0.001) showed the strongest effects. When comparing models containing combinations of ecological, infrastructure, and human experience/perception covariates, the model that best predicted the data was the model with all covariates, followed by the model containing only ecological and infrastructure covariates.
Seasonal RSFs comparing all covariates across the rainy and dry seasons showed that in the dry season hyenas exhibit an increase in landscape-scale selection for NDVI, boundaries, and areas of participatory mapped livestock predation, and a decrease in selection for elevation, rivers, areas of verified livestock predation, and areas of participatory mapped risk from hyenas (Figure 2a).
When comparing global models across land management types, hyenas with dens in Soysambu showed stronger selection for or against human experience/acceptance covariates than hyenas with dens in LNNP (Figure 3a). Soysambu hyenas also showed statistically significant selection against boundaries at the landscape scale (β = 0.236, p < 0.001), which was not exhibited as strongly by LNNP hyenas (β = 0.122, p = 0.46).