The Lion's Share: Spatiotemporal Patterns of Lion Landscape Use in a Shared Human-Wildlife System
Date of Award
Fall 2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Forestry and Environmental Studies
First Advisor
Schmitz, Oswald
Abstract
Land use change is expanding and intensifying worldwide. Terrestrial wildlife conservation requires the protection of landscapes in such a way that the spatiotemporal scales of species movement and gene flow are protected. Large carnivores are often a focal point in landscape-scale conservation projects. This is because large carnivores can induce critical top-down effects in ecosystems, and the disturbance of these effects could lead to biodiversity loss and alteration of ecosystem functions such as productivity and nutrient cycling. Furthermore, land use change constrains large carnivore movement in ways that increase encounters with humans such that human-carnivore conflict can arise. Strategies continue to develop to support carnivore survival in unprotected areas, with specific targets centering upon conflict mitigation with humans. Such approaches increase the likelihood of carnivore survival in the short term, but simply managing for species co-occurrence does not ensure long-term coexistence and population survival. Sustaining long-term carnivore survival and human-carnivore coexistence requires an understanding of the spatiotemporal scales at which humans impact carnivores. My dissertation focuses on examining how varying landscape features, both natural and anthropogenic, impact lion space use in Laikipia, Kenya. Laikipia, Kenya hosts one of the largest remaining free-ranging African lion (Panthera leo) populations. This ecosystem is a uniquely compelling location to explore human-lion coexistence because the mixed-use landscape has no formally protected areas. Instead, livestock ranching and wildlife conservation are two of the most common land use practices in the area which offer both promising benefits of a multi-use landscape, but also unique challenges when wild carnivores can prey upon livestock. I conduct a quantitative analysis on the link between built landscape features and the spatial patterns of lion movement. In Chapter 1, I wrote a perspective-piece on the interplay between eco-evolutionary dynamics and predator-prey (i.e., human-carnivore) interactions. I outline how to methodologically approach an eco-evolutionary study of predator-prey dynamics (which can include human-predator dynamics). Here I sketch a way to help unify experimental and analytical approaches to both eco-evolutionary dynamics and predator-prey interactions, with a specific focus on terrestrial systems. This chapter sets the stage for the necessity of both spatial and genetic analysis (e.g., landscape genetics/genomics) in order to quantify the evolutionary processes underlying landscape-scale ecological patterns in a predator-prey system. From this, the following two chapters hone-in on the spatial element of these considerations. In Chapter 2, I investigated lion space use as a function of landscape features in Laikipia, Kenya by conducting a multi-scale path selection function analysis using high resolution lion GPS data. Lastly, in Chapter 3, I expand my spatial analysis more deeply assessing how fences impact lion movement behavior. I apply a Barrier Behavior Analysis to quantify lion movement behavior near fences, specifically assessing how often lions cross different fence types and whether this occurs at known structural gaps, at certain times of day, or across specific land-use types.
Recommended Citation
Burak, Mary, "The Lion's Share: Spatiotemporal Patterns of Lion Landscape Use in a Shared Human-Wildlife System" (2023). Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations. 1200.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/gsas_dissertations/1200
