Effects of human disturbances on wildlife behaviour and consequences for predator-prey overlap in Southeast Asia

Nature Communications · 5 authors, 6 centres

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TL;DR

The central finding is that disturbances cause a directional shift in wildlife communities, with rarer specialist species becoming more nocturnal while abundant generalist species (like pigs and macaques) increase in proportion, though the overall predator-prey temporal overlap at the community scale did not change significantly.

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They compared wildlife diel activity patterns between intact and disturbed forests, defined by a Forest Landscape Integrity Index. Results showed that for 59 'rarer specialist' species, detections decreased and activity became more nocturnal in disturbed areas, supporting the hypothesis of avoidance behavior. Concurrently, four abundant generalist omnivores (pigs and macaques) increased their share of detections from 39% in intact forests to 68% in disturbed ones. While species-specific pairwise overlap changed, the overall community-level predator-prey and competitor temporal overlap did not shift significantly. Limitations include the potential for prior historical filtering of sensitive species in the region.

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other

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preclinical research

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ORIGINAL PAPER

PMC10876642

Effects of human disturbances on wildlife behaviour and consequences for predator-prey overlap in Southeast Asia

Nature Communications

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ABSTRACT

Abstract Some animal species shift their activity towards increased nocturnality in disturbed habitats to avoid predominantly diurnal humans. This may alter diel overlap among species, a precondition to most predation and competition interactions that structure food webs. Here, using camera trap data from 10 tropical forest landscapes, we find that hyperdiverse Southeast Asian wildlife communities shift their peak activity from early mornings in intact habitats towards dawn and dusk in disturbed habitats (increased crepuscularity). Our results indicate that anthropogenic disturbances drive opposing behavioural adaptations based on rarity, size and feeding guild, with more nocturnality among the 59 rarer specialists’ species, more diurnality for medium-sized generalists, and less diurnality for larger hunted species. Species turnover also played a role in underpinning community- and guild-level responses, with disturbances associated with markedly more detections of diurnal generalists and their medium-sized diurnal predators. However, overlap among predator-prey or competitor guilds does not vary with disturbance, suggesting that net species interactions may be conserved. Subject terms: Community ecology, Tropical ecology, Behavioural ecology

CITATION EXPORT

Samuel Xin Tham Lee, Zachary Amir, Jonathan H Moore et al.. Effects of human disturbances on wildlife behaviour and consequences for predator-prey overlap in Southeast Asia. Nature Communications. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45905-9

AUTHORS

5 · 6 CENTRES

Samuel Xin Tham Lee, Zachary Amir, Jonathan H Moore, Kaitlyn M Gaynor, Matthew Scott Luskin

1School of the Environment, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD Australia
2School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
3School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom
4Departments of Zoology and Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC Canada
5Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, CA USA
6Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD Australia