The spatio-temporal impact of domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) on giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve

doi:10.17520/biods.2021204

Abstract

Abstract:

Aims: Anthropogenic interferences have various forms such as domestic animals, in which many have significant negative impacts but are consistently ignored in conservation planning. Most domestic dogs in Baishuijiang live with humans but act as semi-feral dogs since they are allowed to enter forests, including nature reserve, during most of the year (except for planting periods). During these periods of freedom, their home range, activity pattern, and most importantly, interaction with wild animals, remains unknown. To fill this knowledge gap, we chose the giant panda to study the response of wildlife to free-ranging dogs due to the spatial overlap of domestic dogs and giant pandas in Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve. Our objective was to: (1) track the extent of dog movements in and around nature reserve, and (2) evaluate the percent area of nature reserve where giant panda may come in contact with domestic dogs.

Methods: To understand the extent of the impact free-range domestic dogs have on giant pandas, we used infrared cameras and GPS collars to study the repercussions of domestic dogs entering nature reserve and affecting the wildlife. We also constructed a MaxEnt model to estimate the spatial overlap of domestic dogs and giant pandas in Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve.

Results: The suitable habitat for giant pandas in nature reserve is 885.8 km², around 48.2% of the overall area, while the area of domestic dog distribution is 861.2 km², or 47.6% of the nature reserve. The overlap between domestic dogs and giant panda habitat is 28.2% of the entire nature reserve. There are significant differences in activity rhythms of giant pandas between sites with and without dog detection.

Conclusion: These results indicate the extent to which the trespassing of domestic dogs has affected giant pandas. The negative impact of residential areas could result in a combination of human activities (e.g., poaching, farming, livestock grazing, automobile traffic), requiring distinctive solutions to eliminate. We suggest any major residents close to nature reserves should restrain dogs at residences. Taking account for the effects of dog’s movements and habitat use in the nature reserve is essential for a comprehensive conservation framework.

Key words: giant panda, domestic dog, habitat, camera trap, MaxEnt model

Jirong Teng, Xingming Liu, Liwen He, Junliang Wang, Jian Huang, Jie Feng, Fang Wang, Yue Weng. The spatio-temporal impact of domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) on giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve[J]. Biodiv Sci, 2022, 30(1): 21204.

Add to citation manager EndNote|Ris|BibTeX

URL: https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/10.17520/biods.2021204

https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/Y2022/V30/I1/21204

Figures/Tables 5

Fig. 1 Distribution of giant panda detection sites in Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve

Fig. 2 The estimated habitat range of giant panda across Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve based on the camera stations

Fig. 3 The estimated distribution of dogs across Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve based on the tracking movements of 18 dogs

Fig. 4 The overlap between dogs’ home range and giant pandas’ distributions in Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve

Fig. 5 Species’ daily activity between sites which dog absence (black continuous curves) and dog appearance (blue curves). Significant relationships (P < 0.05) are indicated by asterisks.

References 35

[1]	Anderson RP, Gonzalez IJ (2011) Species-specific tuning increases robustness to sampling bias in models of species distributions: An implementation with Maxent. Ecological Modelling, 222, 2796-2811. DOI URL
[2]	Cao Y, DeWalt RE, Robinson JL, Tweddale T, Hinz L, Pessino M (2013) Using Maxent to model the historic distributions of stonefly species in Illinois streams: The effects of regularization and threshold selections. Ecological Modelling, 259, 30-39. DOI URL
[3]	D’Eon RG, Delparte D (2005) Effects of radio-collar position and orientation on GPS radio-collar performance, and the implications of PDOP in data screening. Journal of Applied Ecology, 42, 383-388. DOI URL
[4]	Doherty TS, Glen AS, Nimmo DG, Ritchie EG, Dickman CR (2016) Invasive predators and global biodiversity loss. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 113, 11261-11265.
[5]	Elith J, Graham CH, Anderson RP, Dudík M, Ferrier S, Guisan A, Hijmans RJ, Huettmann F, Leathwick JR, Lehmann A (2010) Novel methods improve prediction of species’ distributions from occurrence data. Ecography, 29, 129-151. DOI URL
[6]	Feng N (2017) Epidemiological Investigation and Experimental Immune Study on Canine Distemper in Giant Panda. PhD dissertation, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun. (in Chinese with English abstract)
	[ 冯娜 (2017) 大熊猫犬瘟热流行病学调查与实验免疫研究. 博士学位论文, 吉林农业大学, 长春.]
[7]	Fiske I, Chandler R (2011) Unmarked: An R package for fitting hierarchical models of wildlife occurrence and abundance. Journal of Statistical Software, 43, 1-23.
[8]	Frair JL, Nielsen SE, Merrill EH, Lele SR, Boyce MS, Munro RHM, Stenhouse GB, Beyer HL (2004) Removing GPS collar bias in habitat selection studies. Journal of Applied Ecology, 41, 201-212. DOI URL
[9]	Gehrt SD, Wilson EC, Brown JL, Anchor C (2013) Population ecology of free-roaming cats and interference competition by coyotes in urban parks. PLoS ONE, 8, e75718. DOI URL
[10]	Gong MH, Ouyang ZY, Xu WH, Song YL, Dai B (2015) The location of wildlife corridors under the impact of road disturbance: Case study of a giant panda conservation corridor. Acta Ecologica Sinica, 35, 3447-3453. (in Chinese with English abstract)
	[ 龚明昊, 欧阳志云, 徐卫华, 宋延龄, 戴波 (2015) 道路影响下野生动物廊道的选址--以大熊猫保护廊道为例. 生态学报, 35, 3447-3453.]
[11]	He K, Dai Q, Gu XH, Zhang ZJ, Zhou J, Qi DW, Gu XD, Yang XY, Zhang W, Yang B, Yang ZS (2019) Effects of roads on giant panda distribution: A mountain range scale evaluation. Scientific Reports, 9, 1110. DOI URL
[12]	Hughes J, MacDonald DW (2013) A review of the interactions between free-roaming domestic dogs and wildlife. Biological Conservation, 157, 341-351. DOI URL
[13]	Jin YP, Zhang XK, Ma YS, Qiao YC, Liu XB, Zhao KH, Zhang CL, Lin DG, Fu XL, Xu XR, Wang YW, Wang HN (2017) Canine distemper viral infection threatens the giant panda population in China. Oncotarget, 8, 113910-113919. DOI URL
[14]	Kang DW (2021) A review of the impacts of four identified major human disturbances on the habitat and habitat use of wild giant pandas from 2015 to 2020. Science of the total Environment, 763, 142975. DOI URL
[15]	Kennedy B, Brown W, Vernes K, Körtner G, Butler J (2018) Dog and cat interactions in a remote aboriginal community. Animals, 8, 65. DOI URL
[16]	Lacerda ACR, Tomas WM, Marinho-Filho J (2009) Domestic dogs as an edge effect in the Brasília National Park, Brazil: Interactions with native mammals. Animal Conservation, 12, 477-487. DOI URL
[17]	Linkie M, Ridout MS (2011) Assessing tiger-prey interactions in Sumatran rainforests. Journal of Zoology, 284, 224-229. DOI URL
[18]	Liu XH, Wu PF, Shao XM, Songer M, Cai Q, Zhu Y, He XB (2017) Spatiotemporally monitoring forest landscape for giant panda habitat through a high learning-sensitive neural network in Guanyinshan Nature Reserve in the Qinling Mountains, China. Environmental Earth Sciences, 76, 1-12. DOI URL
[19]	McShea WJ, Forrester T, Costello R, He ZH, Kays R (2016) Volunteer-run cameras as distributed sensors for macrosystem mammal research. Landscape Ecology, 31, 55-66. DOI URL
[20]	Meek PD (1999) The movement, roaming behaviour and home range of free-roaming domestic dogs, Canis lupus familiaris, in coastal New South Wales. Wildlife Research, 26, 847- 855. DOI URL
[21]	Parsons AW, Bland C, Forrester T, Baker-Whatton MC, Schuttler SG, McShea WJ, Costello R, Kays R (2016) The ecological impact of humans and dogs on wildlife in protected areas in eastern North America. Biological Conservation, 203, 75-88. DOI URL
[22]	Paschoal AMO, Massara RL, Bailey LL, Kendall WL, Doherty PF Jr, Hirsch A, Chiarello AG, Paglia AP (2016) Use of Atlantic Forest protected areas by free-ranging dogs: Estimating abundance and persistence of use. Ecosphere, 7, 1- 15.
[23]	Rong ZL, Liu XM, Zhao CY, He LW, Liu JJ, Gao YF, Zang F, Xu HJ, Guo ZX, Mao YH (2019) Evaluating giant panda as a surrogate species for conservation co-occurring species in the Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 26, 8939-8948. DOI URL
[24]	Silva-Rodríguez EA, Ortega-Solís GR, Jiménez JE (2010) Conservation and ecological implications of the use of space by Chilla foxes and free-ranging dogs in a human-dominated landscape in southern Chile. Austral Ecology, 35, 765-777. DOI URL
[25]	Tobler MW, Carrillo-Percastegui SE, Leite Pitman R, Mares R, Powell G (2008) An evaluation of camera traps for inventorying large- and medium-sized terrestrial rainforest mammals. Animal Conservation, 11, 169-178. DOI URL
[26]	Vanak AT, Gompper ME (2009) Dogs (Canis familiaris) as carnivores: Their role and function in intraguild competition. Mammal Review, 39, 265-283. DOI URL
[27]	Wang H, Liu XM, Zhao CY, Chang YP, Liu YY, Zang F (2021) Spatial-temporal pattern analysis of landscape ecological risk assessment based on land use/land cover change in Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve in Gansu Province, China. Ecological Indicators, 124, 107454. DOI URL
[28]	Wei FW (2016) Research progress in conservation biology of endangered mammals in China. Acta Theriologica Sinica, 36, 255-269. (in Chinese with English abstract)
	[ 魏辅文 (2016) 我国濒危哺乳动物保护生物学研究进展. 兽类学报, 36, 255-269.]
[29]	Weston MA, Fitzsimons JA, Wescott G, Miller KK, Ekanayake KB, Schneider T (2014) Bark in the park: A review of domestic dogs in parks. Environmental Management, 54, 373-382. DOI URL
[30]	White PCL, Ward AI (2010) Interdisciplinary approaches for the management of existing and emerging human-wildlife conflicts. Wildlife Research, 37, 623-629. DOI URL
[31]	Young JK, Olson KA, Reading RP, Amgalanbaatar S, Berger J (2011) Is wildlife going to the dogs? Impacts of feral and free-roaming dogs on wildlife populations. BioScience, 61, 125-132. DOI URL
[32]	Zhang JD (2017) The research progress of the effects of human and natural disturbance on giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). Journal of China West Normal University (Natural Sciences), 38, 227-233. (in Chinese with English abstract)
	[ 张晋东 (2017) 人类与自然干扰对大熊猫影响的研究进展. 西华师范大学学报(自然科学版), 38, 227- 233.]
[33]	Zhang JJ, Jiang F, Li GY, Qin W, Li SQ, Gao HM, Cai ZY, Lin GH, Zhang TZ (2019) Maxent modeling for predicting the spatial distribution of three raptors in the Sanjiangyuan National Park, China. Ecology and Evolution, 9, 6643-6654. DOI URL
[34]	Zhang YK, Wu YJ, Zhang QY, Ran JH, Price M (2018) Distribution of a giant panda population influenced by land cover. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 82, 1199-1209. DOI URL
[35]	Zhao Y, Chen YP, Ellison AM, Liu WG, Chen D (2019) Establish an environmentally sustainable giant panda national park in the Qinling Mountains. Science of the total Environment, 668, 979-987. DOI