TY - BOOK
T1 - Abundance and Ecology of Leopards (Panthera pardus) in the Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania
AU - Havmøller, Rasmus Gren
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Leopards are with their spots and rosettes one of the most charismatic large cats in Africa. Yet despite common belief it has been studied less than other big cats. This is largely due to leopards being extremely elusive carnivores that are almost impossible to see and follow, especially in dense habitats such as rainforests. The Udzungwa Mountains in South Central Tanzania are covered in both rainforest and more familiar African habitats, holds an incredible number of mammal species and a completely unknown population of leopards. In this study I used automatic camera traps that took photos of all the wildlife that passed by it and used the information gained to understand how many mammal species there are in Udzungwa, how common they are and estimate the densities of leopards across the Udzungwa landscape while also trying to understand what affects their densities. Is it habitat type? Food abundance? Or something else? Additionally I collected leopard pooh whenever I stumbled upon one. I did this to investigate what leopards actually eat by using the latest developments in DNA technologies and compared it to the animals I had captured in my camera traps. The results were not quite what I expected. Finally I used the time of the day that photos were taken by camera traps to try and understand if leopards actively move around in Udzungwa at the same time space as the species they eat and compete with.
AB - Leopards are with their spots and rosettes one of the most charismatic large cats in Africa. Yet despite common belief it has been studied less than other big cats. This is largely due to leopards being extremely elusive carnivores that are almost impossible to see and follow, especially in dense habitats such as rainforests. The Udzungwa Mountains in South Central Tanzania are covered in both rainforest and more familiar African habitats, holds an incredible number of mammal species and a completely unknown population of leopards. In this study I used automatic camera traps that took photos of all the wildlife that passed by it and used the information gained to understand how many mammal species there are in Udzungwa, how common they are and estimate the densities of leopards across the Udzungwa landscape while also trying to understand what affects their densities. Is it habitat type? Food abundance? Or something else? Additionally I collected leopard pooh whenever I stumbled upon one. I did this to investigate what leopards actually eat by using the latest developments in DNA technologies and compared it to the animals I had captured in my camera traps. The results were not quite what I expected. Finally I used the time of the day that photos were taken by camera traps to try and understand if leopards actively move around in Udzungwa at the same time space as the species they eat and compete with.
UR - https://soeg.kb.dk/permalink/45KBDK_KGL/fbp0ps/alma99122317631005763
M3 - Ph.D. thesis
BT - Abundance and Ecology of Leopards (Panthera pardus) in the Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania
PB - Natural History Museum of Denmark, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen
ER -