Rest to roam: behavioural adaptations of tigers in anthropogenically altered landscapes.

Background: Large carnivores in human-dominated landscapes face significant risks from increased anthropogenic pressure, making it crucial to understand their movement behaviour for conservation strategies.

Methods: We used conventional and generalised hidden Markov models (HMMs) to analyse GPS telemetry data collected from 2016 to 2022 on 15 subadult tigers to classify behavioural states across three life stages (pre-dispersal, dispersal, post-dispersal) in the Eastern Vidarbha Landscape, India. We further examined how intrinsic and extrinsic factors influenced transitions between these behavioural states.

Long-distance dispersal by a male sub-adult tiger in a human-dominated landscape.

Conservation of wide-ranging species and their movement is a major challenge in an increasingly fragmented world. Long-distance movement, such as dispersal, is a key factor for the persistence of population, enabling the movement of animals within and between populations. Here, we describe one of the longest dispersal journeys by a sub-adult male tiger () through GPS telemetry in Central India.

Feeding ecology of the endangered Asiatic wild dogs (Cuon alpinus) across tropical forests of the Central Indian Landscape.

Studies on resource utilisation by carnivores are essential as they aid in assessing their role in a community, by unravelling predator-prey relationships. Globally, prey depletion is one of the primary causes of declining Asiatic wild dog (dhole) populations. Therefore, it is essential to examine their diet across their range.

Dhole pack size variation: Assessing the effect of Prey availability and Apex predator.

In multipredator systems, group sizes of social carnivores are shaped by the asymmetric intraguild interactions. Subordinate social carnivores experience low recruitment rates as an outcome of predation pressure. In South and Southeast Asia, the Tiger (), Dhole (), and Leopard () form a widely distributed sympatric guild of large carnivores, wherein tigers are the apex predators followed by dhole and leopard.

Not a cakewalk: Insights into movement of large carnivores in human-dominated landscapes in India.

Large carnivores play an important role in the functioning of ecosystems, yet their conservation remains a massive challenge across the world. Owing to wide-ranging habits, they encounter various anthropogenic pressures, affecting their movement in different landscape. Therefore, studying how large carnivores adapt their movement to dynamic landscape conditions is vital for management and conservation policy.

Standardization and validation of a panel of cross-species microsatellites to individually identify the Asiatic wild dog ().

Background: The Asiatic wild dog or dhole () is a highly elusive, monophyletic, forest dwelling, social canid distributed across south and Southeast Asia. Severe pressures from habitat loss, prey depletion, disease, human persecution and interspecific competition resulted in global population decline in dholes. Despite a declining population trend, detailed information on population size, ecology, demography and genetics is lacking.

Noninvasive DNA-based species and sex identification of Asiatic wild dog ().

Asiatic wild dog () or dhole is an endangered canid with fragmented distribution in South, East and Southeast Asia. The remaining populations of this species face severe conservation challenges from anthropogenic interventions, but only limited information is available at population and demography levels. Here, we describe the novel molecular approaches for unambiguous species and sex identification from noninvasively collected dhole samples.