Seasonal resource selection of an arboreal habitatspecialist in a human-dominated landscape: A case studyusing red panda

Human-dominated landscapes provide heterogeneous wildlife habitat. Conservation of habitat specialists, like red pandas Ailurus fulgens, inhabiting such landscapes is challenging. Therefore, information on resource use across spatial and temporal scales could enable informed-decisionmaking with better conservation outcomes. We aimed to examine the effect of geo-physical, vegetation, and disturbance variables on fine-scalehabitat selection of red pandas in one such landscape. We equipped 10 red pandas with GPS collars in eastern Nepal in 2019 and monitoredthem for 1 year. Our analysis was based on a generalized-linear-mixed model. We found the combined effect of geo-physical, vegetation, anddisturbance variables resulted in differences in resource selection of red pandas and that the degree of response to these variables variedacross seasons. Human disturbances, especially road and cattle herding activities, affected habitat utilization throughout the year whereas othervariables were important only during restricted periods. For instance, geo-physical variables were influential in the premating and cub-rearingseasons while vegetation variables were important in all seasons other than premating. Red pandas selected steeper slopes with high solarinsolation in the premating season while they occupied elevated areas and preferred specific aspects in the cub-rearing season. Furthermore,the utilized areas had tall bamboo in the birthing and cub-rearing seasons while they also preferred diverse tree species and high shrub coverin the latter. Our study demonstrates the significance of season-specific management, suggests the importance of specific types of vegetationduring biologically crucial periods, and emphasizes the necessity to minimize disturbances throughout the year.

Relationships among rat numbers,abundance of oil palm fruit and damage levels to fruit in an oil palm plantation

The relationships between vertebrate pests and crop damage are often complex and difficult to study.In palm oil plantations rodents remain the major pests,causing substantial monetary losses.The present study examined the numerical and functional responses of rodents to changes in the availability of oil palm fruit and the damage associated with that response.For the study,200 traps were set in pairs on a 10×10 trapping grid for 3 consecutive nights in each of 6 study plots at 8-week intervals in a 2569 ha oil palm plantation at Labu,Negeri Sembilan state in Peninsular Malaysia over 14 months.A total of 1292 individual rats were captured over 25200 trap-nights.Animals were identified,aged,sexed,weighed and measured.An index of the relative abundance of rats was calculated based on trapping success.Damage to infructescences was assessed at each trap point.Regardless of the age of palms,there were positive and significant relationships between the relative abundance of rats and numbers of infructescences.The levels of damage to infructescences were significantly correlated with the relative abundance of rats.A steep increase in damage was observed with an increase in mature infructescences,indicating a feeding preference of rats for mature infructescences.For both males and females of all rat species,there were weak and non-significant correlations between body condition and infructescence numbers.These results indicated that there was a numerical and a functional response by rats to the availability of palm fruit and a resulting increase in depredation of oil palm fruits.The ways in which this information might aid in future pest control are discussed.