Hi Fridolin, I clearly remember a very nice and recently published paper of Bischof 2014. But, I think that, according to your "animal preference", may be those of Ross 2013, Steinmetz 2013 and Wang 2009 are more suitable. If you should require full references, feel free to email me. Stef

Dear sir,

Your prediction on variation in the use of paths by larger and small predators is very true, I too have similar observation on the differences in the path selection by large and small predator in tropical forests of Southern India.  May be experimental studies on placing multiple cameras in different paths will provide clues...

Fridolin - the oppposite is the case in Australia, we have our top order predator the dingo (wolf relative) and Vulpes vulpes, feral cat and Dasyurus maculatus (Quoll), all use roads together, its one of the subjects of our long term reseacrh on predator interactions. We have a large satelite tagged population at various sites and there appears to be considerable spatial overlap - lets chat via email as its complex. Happy Yuletide to you both. Paul

Hi Fridolin,

this is a very complex issue and depends on many factors, such as competition among large and small carnivores in a given territory, availability of alternative tracks and paths to use, slope inclination, habitat quality and prey availability, season, etc. Energy consumption during spatial movements for food and reproduction (mating) is a crucial factor that does influence  the animal behavior a lot, including territorial or spatial behavior. In my field experience in Albania, I have observed a lot of cases of spatial overlapping among large and small carnivores, using or cross-cutting the same forest roads, tracks, trails, and paths. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Ferdinand

Hello Mr. Zimmermann,

There is a paper, "Response of leopards to re-introduced tigers in Sariska Tiger Reserve, Western India" which deals with the the change in site utilization and temporal activity of leopard after tiger reintroduction in Sariska. Another paper is from Belize, "Differential Use of Trails by Forest Mammals and the Implications for Camera-Trap Studies: A Case Study from Belize". You will find these papers easily. Otherwise please feel free to let me know.

Dibyendu

I have telemetry data from Addo Elephant National Park showing lions preferring to use roads, leopards avoiding roads, and spotted hyaenas using them in accordance with their availability. I also have camera trap data from central Australia showing dingoes prefer roads, while foxes and cats avoid them, and the mallee showing foxes prefer tracks and cats avoid them, unl

Sir Matt W Hayward,

Do you have published literature in it? seems very interesting to go through ?

Here is an article that deals with complex relationships between foxes, hyenas and wolves. Foxes in presence of hyenas reduce intensity of foraging and have a different activity schedule. But in presence of wolf scats the foxes actually intensify their foraging efforts in food trays.

Patch use in time and space for a meso-predator in a risky world

Shomen Mukherjee et al 2008

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00442-008-1243-3/fulltext.html 

Hi Fridolin,

I currently have a paper in press (J Zoo) that shows multiple small predators alter their temporal activity in presence of humans and exotics. I have another in review showing native small predators "avoid" areas where exotic predators are active via co-occurrence modeling. However, as others have stated, I think the camera study design would need to be set up specifically to address this particular issue. Without setting up half the cameras on established roads/trails and half off trail/road then it would be difficult (not impossible) to demonstrate this cause-effect relationship.

Just my thoughts on this. I am happy to pass the two papers I mentioned along should you want them.

Hi Fridolin, i'm working with camera traps on wolves in an apennine area of central Italy. We place cameraa on dirty roads and pathways to maximize capture probability of wolves. We see frequently foxes but at the moment i don't have results on encounter frequency of the two species. We we have them i will inform you.  I underly that in our area intraguild predation seems a very rare accident as in more than 10.000 wolf scats we found hair fox only in a handufl of cases. In areas with very high density of preys like apennine, wolf and fox seem to have limited trpphic competition (Bassi E. et al, 2011) and foxes may even benefit carcass availability from wolf predation.

Sunita, the camera trap data is owned by my former employer.