Coexistence of two sympatric flagship carnivores in the human-dominated forest landscapes of Northeast Asia

摘要: Understanding how large carnivore guilds survive in human-dominated landscapes is key to inform strategies for their conservation the face of global declines. Amur tigers and leopards are recovering across China-Russia border. However, knowledge limited about competitive interactions between two cats Northeast Asia. To assess spatial, temporal combined spatiotemporal behavioral mechanisms potentially allow co-occurrence a forest landscape. Based on large-scale camera-trapping data set China, we used three different approaches quantifying associations: one spatial method (two-species occupancy model), strictly (activity pattern overlap), based multi-response permutation procedures at shared camera trap sites. Spatially, showed no avoidance areas highly by dominant tigers, but diurnal activity was significantly from that tigers. Spatiotemporal overlap analysis fine-scale when both co-occurred locations, which further facilitates sympatry. Tigers spatially overlapped with humans, they were less active during day human activities more frequent. In high cattle density, low occurrence may reflect absence sika deer, an important prey item species. This study provides first empirical evidence do not limit leopard distributions, least our area Our results highlighted segregation, large-scaled avoidance, as mechanism promoting coexistence carnivores. these fine- scale (i.e., locations) sympatric carnivores can help devise management predator landscapes, currently major challenge.