Kamala tree as an indicator of the presence of Asian elephants during the dry season in the Shivalik landscape of northwestern India |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Key Laboratory of Economic Plants and Biotechnology, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China;2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;3. Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Indian Space Research Organization, Dehradun 248 001, India;4. Southeast Asia Biodiversity Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan 666303, China;5. Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands;6. World Agroforestry Centre, East and Central Asia, Kunming 650201, China;1. Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650201, China;2. Plant Germplasm and Genomics Center, Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Kunming, Yunnan 650201, China;3. Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité ISYEB, Unité Mixte de Recherche 7205, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Muséum national d’histoire naturelle/École Pratique des Hautes Études/Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, Sorbonne Universités, 57 Rue Cuvier, CP39, F-75231 Paris cedex 05, France;4. Kunming College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650201, China;1. Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China;2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;1. State Key Laboratory of Phytochemistry and Plant Resources in West China, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, Yunnan, PR China;2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China;1. Plant Germplasm and Genomics Center, Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650201, China;2. Kunming College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650201, China;3. Department of Botany, National Museum of Natural History, MRC 166, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013-7012, USA;4. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Sciences and Ecological Engineering, Institute of Plant Biology, Institute of Biodiversity Sciences, Center for Evolutionary Biology, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China;1. Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China;2. Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla 666303, China;3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;4. Department of Paleoanthropology, Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Kunming 650118, China;5. State Key Laboratory of Paleobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China;1. Key Laboratory of Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Kunming 650201, China;2. World Agroforestry Centre East and Central Asia, Kunming 650201, China;3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;4. School of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China;5. World Agroforestry Centre, United Nations Avenue, Gigiri, 30677-00100, Nairobi, Kenya |
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| Abstract: | The availability of forage resources during the dry season is often a critical factor in determining the distribution and movement of large herbivores. It has long been suspected that the Kamala tree (Mallotus philippinensis) can serve as an indicator of the distribution for Asian elephants during the dry season in northwestern India. However, there is little direct evidence in support of this speculation, especially at a large landscape scale. Here, we predicted the distribution of Kamala trees in the Shivalik landscape of northwestern India based on topographic and bioclimatic variables, as well as satellite-derived vegetation indices and forest canopy height data using a presence-only ecological niche model. We used the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and true skill statistic (TSS) to validate the model. We then examined the relationship between the occurrence probability of Kamala trees and the presence of Asian elephants with data collected during dry seasons between 2010 and 2014 using logistic regression models. Our results showed that the probability of occurrence of Kamala trees was predicted with good accuracy (AUC = 0.88 and TSS = 0.51). The logistic regression models showed that the presence of Asian elephants can be adequately predicted by the occurrence probability of Kamala trees. This result suggests that the distribution of Kamala trees is a good indicator of the presence of Asian elephants during the dry season in the Shivalik landscape. These findings may have major implications for the conservation of Asian elephants, especially in designing wildlife corridors and mitigating human-elephant conflicts. |
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| Keywords: | Species distribution model Asian elephant Kamala tree Indicator species |
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