EAPSI: Understanding Habitat Use and Response to Human Settlement by Small Carnivores

Shih Stephanie, Tenafly NJ

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports research to understand how and why some of Taiwan?s small carnivores adapt quite well to human disturbance, while others are less successful. Carnivores are essential to functioning, healthy ecological communities, so it is important to understand how they are doing in any particular ecosystem. The study will investigate how these animals adjust their diet, choice of habitat, and schedules, among other factors, depending on proximity to human development. Taiwan, despite its relatively small size, is richly diverse ecologically, but much of the island has been heavily deforested for agriculture and urban development, which has reduced and fragmented wildlife habitats. Nevertheless, Taiwan, like countries and cities all over the world, continues to be under constant pressure to develop, leaving its remaining forests vulnerable to further reduction and fragmentation. This research will be conducted as part of an ongoing Ph.D. research project under the mentorship of Dr. Pei-Jen Lee Shaner at National Taiwan Normal University. The methods and principles of this project can be easily applied in order to understand the ecology of urban landscapes, how human actions can alter wildlife, and how to manage urban wildlife here in the United States. Data regarding the activities of small carnivores and their prey will be collected by camera trapping, gathering and analyzing scats, and recording scat sample locations along transects in field sites. Scat analysis will be completed using next-generation sequencing of scat samples, revealing genetic information and diet composition, among other data. Our analysis will help reveal what factors (e.g. canopy cover, vegetation type, prey availability, etc.) influence distribution and niche use; the extent to which niches of different species overlap and how they compare in pristine areas versus unprotected/developed areas; and what factors explain success or failure in human-dominated habitats. This project will employ inexpensive, noninvasive, and effective methods, and contribute to existing literature on urban ecology. This NSF EAPSI award supports the research of a U.S. graduate student and is funded in collaboration with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan.