Occupancy and diet of the Indian desert fox Vulpes vulpes pusilla in a Prosopis juliflora invaded semi-arid grassland

Chetan Misher,Abi Tamim Vanak

doi:10.2981/wlb.00781

Abstract

Encroachment by woody invasive plants has been recognized as a major driver of structural change in grasslands ecosystems. The impact of invasive plant-mediated changes on mammalian species from higher trophic levels is relatively less understood. This study aims to understand the impact of woody encroachment on the ecology of a relatively understudied mesopredator, the Indian desert fox Vulpes v. pusilla in a semi-arid saline grassland ecosystem in Western India. We examined the site occupancy of the Indian desert fox at the landscape level, and den site selection at the micro-habitat scale. We also examined the diet of desert foxes during winter and summer season. We found that at the landscape level the desert fox selects more open Suaeda saline habitats over dense invasive Prosopis juliflora dominated habitats. At the scale of the den, proximity to water and vegetation cover were the main drivers of den site selection. Similar to other arid zone foxes, insects, plant materials and small mammals were the main components of the diet of Indian desert fox. Given its selection of open habitats, invasive shrub encroachment is likely to result in a loss of habitat as well as resources for this species, potentially impacting on the conservation status of this already range-restricted species in India.

Highlights

Grasslands are among the most altered terrestrial ecosystem across the globe, facing threats from rapid urbanization, fragmentation, overgrazing, land conversion for agriculture and introduction of non-native species (White et al 2000)
We studied the den-site selection of the Indian desert fox, and as with other arid environments adapted foxes (Uresk et al 2003, Dell’Arte and Leonardi 2008), we expected that avail
The presence of desert fox was recorded in 16 grids out of a total of 39 sampled, which gave us a naïve occupancy rate of 0.41 whereas the estimated occupancy rate Ywas 0.45, with ap = 0.77

Summary

Introduction

Grasslands are among the most altered terrestrial ecosystem across the globe, facing threats from rapid urbanization, fragmentation, overgrazing, land conversion for agriculture and introduction of non-native species (White et al 2000). Encroachment of woody vegetation into grasslands and savannah has been recognized as a major driver of change in the biodiversity and functioning of these ecosystems. Woody encroachment in grasslands affects the soil nutrient cycle and carbon storage (Peltzer et al 2010) and alters the physical structure of a landscape from an open grassland habitat to dense woodland. The impact of these structural changes in grasslands on native fauna has gained much attention from researchers. Reducing grass cover due to the expansion of woody shrubs has altered herbivore species composition from grazing dominated to browsing dominated communities (Smit and Prins 2015)

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