Ecological Dynamics of Large Carnivores in Human-Dominated Landscapes

Large carnivores function as keystone species, regulating prey populations and maintaining ecosystem resilience. As human activities expand, these predators increasingly occupy landscapes fragmented by agriculture, urban development and infrastructure. In such settings they exhibit altered movement patterns, modified social interactions and elevated energetic costs. Habitat fragmentation may generate source–sink dynamics, in which high-quality “source” patches sustain reproduction while adjacent “sink” areas incur mortality exceeding birth rates. Behavioural shifts—such as nocturnal foraging near settlements—can mitigate direct human encounters but drive up caloric requirements and influence prey communities. Simultaneously, fine-scale network connectivity among individuals determines disease transmission potential, especially when overlapping territories intensify seasonal contacts. Conservation strategies therefore hinge on balancing human land-use planning, creation of wildlife corridors and adaptive management of conflict hotspots. Translocation, road-crossing structures and targeted protection of source habitats have demonstrated success in promoting genetic exchange and reducing mortality. Globally, integrating ecological theory with practical interventions is essential to safeguard both predator persistence and the ecosystem services they underpin.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have employed long-term telemetry and network analysis to quantify how seasonal changes in spatial overlap influence pathogen dynamics in a solitary carnivore. By constructing home-range overlap networks across dry and wet seasons, researchers revealed that dry-season networks exhibit higher connectivity, leading to larger and more protracted simulated outbreaks when pathogens are introduced. This work highlights that even solitary large carnivores can experience significant fluctuation in contact structure, emphasising the need to incorporate behavioural seasonality into disease-management plans and vaccination strategies in fragmented habitats.

Ecological Dynamics of Large Carnivores in Human-Dominated Landscapes publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in ecological dynamics of large carnivores in human-dominated landscapes across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Source–sink dynamics: A population structure in which high-quality habitats (“sources”) produce excess individuals that disperse into lower-quality areas (“sinks”) where mortality exceeds reproduction.

Home-range overlap network: A representation of spatial connections among individuals based on the degree of territory overlap, used to infer social contacts and disease transmission pathways.

Resource selection function (RSF): A statistical model that quantifies the probability of habitat use by an animal as a function of environmental covariates.

Resistance surface: A spatial layer assigning movement costs to landscape features, used to model dispersal corridors and connectivity.

Anthropogenic mortality: Deaths of wildlife directly attributable to human activities, including vehicle collisions, habitat conversion and conflict-related removals.

References

1. Seasonal changes in network connectivity and consequences for pathogen transmission in a solitary carnivore. Scientific Reports (2023).
2. Habitat fragmentation reduces survival and drives source–sink dynamics for a large carnivore. Ecological Applications (2023).
3. Residential development alters behavior, movement, and energetics in an apex predator, the puma. PLOS ONE (2017).
4. Multi-level, multi-scale resource selection functions and resistance surfaces for conservation planning: Pumas as a case study. PLOS ONE (2017).