Activity patterns and spatial co-occurrence of sympatric mammals in the moist temperate forest of the Kashmir Himalaya, India

Abstract

Little is known about the activity pattern and co-occurrence of mammalian species coexisting sympatrically in the rugged terrains of the Himalaya. By using camera traps we quantified diel activity patterns and temporal overlap as well as probabilistic model of spatial species co-occurrence amongst eight species. The jungle cat and the Indian porcupine tended to be strictly nocturnal whereas the leopard cat and the red fox were primarily nocturnal and crepuscular, yellow-throated marten was diurnal. The Asiatic black bear, leopard and the hangul showed no clear pattern. We found highest temporal overlap (Δ1 = 0.84, 95%CI = 0.54-0.86) between leopard and Asiatic black bear followed by pairs between red fox and leopard cat (Δ1 = 0.83, 95%CI = 0.72-0.91) and jungle cat (Δ1 = 0.82, 95%CI = 0.60-0.91). The lowest temporal overlap was found between yellow-throated marten and Indian porcupine (Δ = 0.11, 95%CI = 0.08-0.20). The results from probabilistic pairwise species co-occurrence analysis suggest that out of 28 possible species pairs 25 had random associations and one pair was unclassifiable. The remaining two species pairs had positive associations of co-occurrences between leopard cat and hangul (Pgt < 0.05) and Indian porcupine and hangul (Pgt < 0.05). Our results provided new insights into this unique community of mammals of the western Himalaya and will facilitate future studies on the mechanism determining coexistence of animal species within complex system.