Human-wildlife conflicts are a major threat to the conservation of endangered species. Depredation, or even simply the risk of depredation, leads to unregulated killing of charismatic megafauna predators. Though many of these predators reside in environments with diverse prey assemblages and exhibit wide dietary breadth, consumption of livestock remains pervasive. The case of African lions (Panthera leo) exemplifies complex feedbacks of how dynamics among parasitism, behavior, and consumption might interact to determine persistence in human-dominated landscapes. For example, the growing integration of livestock in the lion’s diet has led to human persecution becoming one of the primary causes for the Critically Endangered status of the West African lion sub-population, which now occupies only 1.1% of its historical range. In the largest protected area complex in West Africa spanning Burkina Faso, Niger, and Benin (WAP), an understudied system that typifies many coupled predator-prey-people systems in developing nations around the world, we study lion ecology to empirically identify levers that promote coexistence with human communities. Specifically, we investigate microbial and intestinal parasite community, space use, and activities patterns using non-invasive monitoring techniques where lions are sympatric with impoverished human communities.
Results/Conclusions
In 2016, we began implementing a remote camera survey monitored over 250 locations to-date throughout 40% of the 27,000km2 WAP complex including 2 National Parks and 9 hunting concessions. Species detected included 18 known wild prey species for lions (3 - 1600kg, mean = 170kg) from > 1.9 million images. Naïve estimates of occupancy for humans and livestock at Park Arly were 0.30 and 0.17, respectively; in contrast to Park W-Burkina Faso at 0.48 and 0.19, respectively. Temporally-explicit zones of potential conflict arose from investigating temporal profiles and heatmaps of activity. The degree of temporal overlap between lions and humans detected was heterogeneous across the complex and dependent upon the degree of human disturbance. Many parasites detected were shared genera with domestic animals and humans including: Spirometra sp., Aelurostrongylus sp., Isospora sp., Trichuris sp., Taenia sp. Seven classified Phylum were detected (relative abundance > 0.02) with Firmicutes being the most dominant and present in every lion fecal sample. Ultimately, our work highlights three essential feedbacks: risk management, depredation and well-being, and policy compliance in coupled-natural human ecosystems with large predators. Protected areas will continue to represent systems where socio-ecological processes emerge to govern species persistence and human livelihoods.