Sympatric large carnivores in Senegal 667


TABLE 1 Covariates used to model site use (occupancy; ψ) and detection probabilities (ρ) of the four large carnivore species (West African lion Panthera leo leo, leopard Panthera pardus, spotted hyaena Crocuta crocuta and African wild dog Lycaon pictus) occurring in Niokolo-Koba National Park, Senegal (Fig. 1), associated hypotheses and predicted signs of influence. We derived all covariates at the camera-trap station level.


Process Covariates ρ


Effort Description


Number of trap-days at the station level


Type


Presence of sympatric species (i.e. leopard, lion, hyaena, wild dog)


Type of camera used (PantheraCam V7, V6 or Browning BTC-6HDX)


Detection history (pres- ence, absence) for each sympatric large carnivore


Hypotheses


Survey effort impacts detection of studied species (Combe et al., 2019)


Difference between camera brand & mod- els could impact detection


Detections of sympat- ric carnivores at the same station may affect the detection of other carnivores (Creel et al., 2001)


Predicted sign of influence


(+) Longer survey dur- ation increases the likeli- hood of large carnivores being detected (Dröge et al., 2020)


(+ or −) Large carnivores are more likely to be de-


tected with more sensitive cameras & vice versa


(−) For leopards & African wild dogs because


of subordinate relation with lions (Darnell et al., 2014); (+) for lions & spotted hyaenas because of scav- enging &/or dominant relationships with other carnivores (Swanson et al., 2014)


ψ NDVI


Normalized difference vegetation index


Dist_Gambie Dist_Niokolo Dist_River


Distance to the Gambian River, the Niokolo-Koba River or the main river of the National Park: Niokolo-Koba, Koulountou or Gambian Rivers (km). We separated the two rivers as the Gambian River is considerably larger than the Niokolo River, containing more water & waterholes


Dist_Road


Distance to the nearest road (km)


Dist_Edge


Distance to the edge of the National Park (km)


NDVI has been shown to influence site use of large carnivores in West Africa (Pettorelli et al., 2011)


Distance to water in- fluences site use of large carnivores (Kittle et al., 2016)


(+) During the dry season, NDVI is a proxy for re- sources (water & primary productivity; Santin-Janin et al., 2009)


(+) During the dry season, large carnivores are more likely to use areas near water sources (Valeix et al., 2010)


GEE Landsat 2020–2021 (resolution: 30 m)


This study This study


Source of the data


This study


This study


Large carnivores are affected by the pres- ence of roads & vehicle tracks (Tanwar et al., 2021)


Distance to the edge of the protected area af- fects carnivore species (Murcia, 1995)


(+) Large carnivores favour roads for travel (Stander, 1998)


(+) Illegal activities such as hunting are often carried out by communities around national parks & decrease with the distance to the edge of the park. Therefore, large carnivores’ site use should increase with the distance to the edge (Woodroffe & Ginsberg, 1998)


This study


This study


Oryx, 2024, 58(5), 664–675 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605323001746


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