behind the big cat's and bear's, who is the top predator?

[Pckts]

(05-29-2019, 11:31 PM)Pckts Wrote:

Quote:Leopards killed Sambar Stags at a greater frequency in Yala, which has no lions or tigers:

Incorrect, only 4 Sambar appeared in the entire study and again the highest number of kills occurred from Chital, like they do anywhere else.
That's 4 out of 44 kills and not to mention they could of all been done by one Leopard who specializes in Sambar Kills, they could of been scavenged or of course Killed by the Leopard, but either way it's again a very minimal number. 

*This image is copyright of its original author

"In  RNP  86.4%  of  scat  samples  (N  =  214) contained  hair  from  medium  to  large  mammal prey  (axis  deer,  water  buffalo,  wild  boar  and sambar)  consistent  with  previous  observations here  (Amerasinghe  et  al.  1990;  Amerasinghe  & Ekanayake  1992).  Leopards  tend  to  prefer  prey between  10–40  kg  with  the  strongest  preference for animals 23–25 kg (Hayward et al. 2006). Young axis deer fit this size (Table 1) but overall axis deer are  taken  in  proportion  to  their  availability  in RNP.  Conversely  sambar,  the  largest  deer available  here,  seem  to  be  selected  by  leopards. Seidensticker  (1976)  found  leopards  selecting  for smaller  age/sex  classes  of  sambar  in  Royal Chitwan  National  Park,  Nepal,  however  in  RNP 75% (N  =  4) of  sambar  carcasses  detected were  of adult  males  (215  kg,  Santiapillai  et  al.  1981). Despite  potential  bias in  carcass  detection toward larger age/sex classes and a small sample size''



" particularly  that carnivore  population  density  appears  determined  by  prey  availability,  not  competition  with dominant inter-specifics."

Quote:Leopards kill Sambar stags, and kill rates increase in areas without other serious competitors:

The Sambar Stag and adult female kills increased when Tigers were temporarily extirpated

" From the present study it was

understood that, when there was a large number of
tigers (12–16) in the study area (1988–1990), leopard was dependent on lesser bodied prey species
and occupied broader diet niche breadth than tiger
(Sankar & Johnsingh 2002). But after the extermination of tigers, diet of leopard completely shifted to
large bodied ungulates (Mondal et al. 2011). After
the re-introduction of tiger in the study area, both
the predators utilized the prey species in a similar
manner and showed similar preference towards large
ungulates. The dietary overlap between leopard and
tiger was also increased from 54% (1988–1990) to
94% (present study). There was a noticeable difference observed in the selection of sex and age class of
prey species by these two predators, as leopard largely
hunted fawns and females of large ungulates, while
tiger largely hunted adult males, as observed by kill
records (Figure 8). At present, there are only six reintroduced tigers in Sariska TR. With the increase in
the number of re-introduced tigers a clearer picture
of prey utilization and dietary interaction between
these two top predators in the study area is expected"

 

*This image is copyright of its original author

While yes, Sambar numbers did go Up in Leopard prey between 2 studies that were 18 years apart, they continued to go up after the reintroduction of Tigers and not only did they go up but Chital numbers went down after the reintroduction. Also something to note is that not only did Leopard see an increase but so did the Tiger, both jumped up almost the same % between the 1990 study and the 2009 study.
Which I'm sure has more to do with an increase in prey biomass especially in the species where we see the significant jump. 
Also note that 1990 study where some how Tigers take Chital more often than Leopards and Leopards took Sambar more often than Tigers, that alone should be a red flag that the two studies are have very different conclusions.

You've already posted that exact study and my response was above:


In regards to Pench, it's massive and consists of 2 different countries, it's also hot, dry and not nearly as filled with prey than Tadoba or Kanha for instance. 
Can you post the link of the study so we can all the factors involved?
Again, I've shown predation on Sambar in Tiger and Lion Dominated territories and larger prey than that in Africa with in Lion Dominated territories.

For instance

"For leopard, common langur, sambar, wild pig and cat-tle were preferred more than their availability (Table 5 and Figure 2). Chital and gaur were consumed less than their  availability. The index  of prey selection by leopard at individual species level was in the following order: wild pig > sambar > common langur > cattle > gaur > chital (Table 5). "

Prey selection by tiger and leopard
"Sambar was observed to be the principle prey species for tigers as inferred from the percentage occurrence of prey remains in tiger scats (Table 2). Sambar also con-tributed to highest biomass of prey consumed by the tiger and was consumed more than the availability of individuals (Table 5 and Figure 2).  Sambar’s preference by tiger could be attributed to the larger body weight and wide distribution of sambar across the study area and hence  there  could  have been  higher frequencies of encounter since both the species are crepuscular in habits (Johnsingh, 1983). Similar results were obtained by other studies in the country (Schaller 1967; Karanth and Sunquist  1995;  Biswas and  Sankar, 2002).  Chital constituted 22.75% of the tiger diet during the present study which is less than that was reported from other areas  i.e.,  Pench- 53.01%  (Biswas  and  Sankar, 2002), Kanha-52.2% (Schaller, 1967), Nagarahole- 31.2% (Ka-ranth and Sunquist, 1995) and Bandipur- 39% (Johns-ingh, 1983).Leopard in the study area fed on 10 different prey spe-cies. Chital,  sambar  and  common langur  constituted 84.2% of  leopard’s diet  (Table 3)  which  is  similar  to the findings  reported from Nagarahole (Karanth and Sunquist, 1995).  In Sariska  (Sankar and  Johnsingh, 2002), chital, sambar and common langur constituted only 47.2% of the leopard’s diet. However in Sariska, Sankar and Johnsingh, (2002) reported a high percent-age of (45.6%) rodent remains in leopard scats and the reason for the same was attributed to the high rodent availability. On the contrary, during the present study no rodent remains were recorded in the leopard scats.The leopard preferred common langur, sambar and wild pig in the study area (Figure 2). It  was observed that both tiger and leopard showed preference for sambar in the study area. Since leopard is nocturnal and tiger is crepuscular in habits  (Prater, 1980) they may show preference for the same prey species but their utilization might be in different times (hours) of a day.
The observed high dietary overlap (>72%) for the uti-lized prey species in terms of percentage of frequency occurrence of prey remain in the diet and percentage of biomass consumed by tiger and leopard may be at-tributed to high prey 
availability in the study area."

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275647614_Food_habits_and_prey_selection_of_tiger_and_leopard_in_Mudumalai_Tiger_Reserve_Tamil_Nadu_India


In the end, every study posted states the same more or less, Prey Biomass dictates the how many leopards and other carnivores can be supported.
No other factor other than that should be at the top of the list. All other factors *Competition, Climate, Terrain, Altitude, etc.* Should all be secondary. Any predation by Leopards on prey >65kg should be considered rare compared to the 15kg-50kg range which no matter the location, *Central Africa, South Africa, East Africa, Iran, Sri Lanka etc* all have similar average prey body mass. But the difference is the biomass, nothing in that range comes close to what is seen in Africa, especially in E. Africa which is why the Leopard population is so high there as well as the Lion population. I'm not saying that removing Lions from that eco system wouldn't be beneficial to Leopards but the facts remain that if the Ungulate Biomass is high, Lions will be there as long as other external factors aren't involved. And for an ecosystem to support any real number of Lions it must have a larger amount of prey, all other subordinate carnivores will benefit from this and that is why you see Leopard numbers so high even in these areas that have Lion density. The Serengeti is absolutely massive, and relatively speaking, different Lion prides live very close to one another which shows their patrol range isn't that massive or they've found a way to avoid each other and the same can be said for Leopards, they have obviously adapted to find ample space, different patrol times and locations to maintain some of the highest numbers on earth. Reply