Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research The Swiss Institute for Dryland Environmental and Energy Research Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology

Seminar Vijayan Sundararaj Department of Life Sciences

Ben Gurion University

Tuesday, March 29, 2016, 12:00 Seminar Room, Old Administration Building Participants are invited to meet the seminar speaker at the MDDE meeting room immediately after the seminar (~ 13:00). Please bring your lunch; snacks will be provided.

Predator Mediated Indirect Interactions in Livestock-Wild Prey System Livestock are common in many protected areas and due to their negative effects pose a considerable challenge to protected area managers attempting to conserve native ecosystems. A literature review on livestock in conservation areas indicates that research has predominantly focused on negative effects like resource competition, habitat modification, and human-carnivore conflicts. The potential role of predator-mediated indirect interactions between native herbivores and livestock via shared predation has been overlooked or ignored in natural areas dominated by human-livestock settlements. I investigated the role of predator-mediated effects on a native herbivore (chital deer, Axis axis) in a natural system containing large domestic prey (buffalo, Bubalus bubalus, cattle, Bos indicus) and their common predator (Asiatic lion, Panthera leo persica). I explored whether livestock alter predation risk and habitat selection of chitals in two areas representing low and high livestock densities. Chital vigilance was lower in the area where livestock were abundant, suggesting a positive effect of livestock on native prey in lowering predation risk. Using Isodar analysis I found that at lower densities chitals preferentially occupy areas with livestock as a means of managing predation risk while accepting higher than expected resource competition; at higher densities, chitals preferentially occupy areas without livestock, trading off access to food and managing predation risk in larger conspecific groups. My study thus suggests that wild prey can manage risk while co-existing with livestock. Conservation biologists and managers should anticipate that a variety of indirect interactions come into play in systems where livestock coexist in natural predator-prey ecosystems.