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Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) SMALL WILD CATS SPECIAL ISSUE Article Estimating Leopard Cat Prionailurus bengalensis Kerr, 1792 (Carnivora: Felidae) density in a degraded tropical forest fragment in northeastern Thailand Wyat Joseph Petersen, Tommaso Savini, Robert Steinmetz & Dusit Ngoprasert 12 March 2019 | Vol. 11 | No. 4 | Pages: 13448–13458 DOI: 10.11609/jot.4553.11.4.13448-13458 For Focus, Scope, Aims, Policies, and Guidelines visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-0 For Artcle Submission Guidelines, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions For Policies against Scientfc Misconduct, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-2 For reprints, contact <[email protected]> The opinions expressed by the authors do not refect the views of the Journal of Threatened Taxa, Wildlife Informaton Liaison Development Society, Zoo Outreach Organizaton, or any of the partners. 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Partner Member Threatened Taxa Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 12 March 2019 | 11(4): 13448–13458 Article Estimating Leopard Cat Prionailurus bengalensis Kerr, 1792 (Carnivora: Felidae) density in a degraded tropical forest ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) fragment in northeastern Thailand ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Wyat Joseph Petersen 1 , Tommaso Savini 2 , Robert Steinmetz 3 & Dusit Ngoprasert 4 PLATINUM OPEN ACCESS 1,2,4 Conservaton Ecology Program, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, 49 Soi Thientalay 25, Bangkhunten-Chaitalay Road, Thakham, Bangkhunten, Bangkok 10150, Thailand. 3 World Wide Fund for Nature – Thailand, 87 Phaholyothin 5, Samsen Nai, Phayathai, Bangkok 10400, Thailand. 1 [email protected] (corresponding author), 2 [email protected], 3 [email protected], 4 [email protected] Abstract: The Leopard Cat Prionailurus bengalensis is thought to be Asia’s most abundant wild cat. Yet, the species’ status is poorly known due to a lack of rigorous populaton estmates. Based on the few studies available, Leopard Cats appear to be more abundant in degraded forests, potentally due to increased prey availability. We conducted camera trap surveys, rodent live-trapping, and spatally-explicit capture-recapture analyses to estmate the density of Leopard Cats within a degraded tropical forest fragment (148km2) in northeastern Thailand. A total efort of 12,615 camera trap nights across 65km2 of trapping area resulted in at least 25 uniquely identfed individuals. Average rodent biomass (the main prey of Leopard Cats) was highest in the dry evergreen forest (469.0g/ha), followed by dry dipterocarp forest (287.5g/ha) and reforested areas (174.2g/ha). Accordingly, Leopard Cat densites were highest in the dry evergreen forest with 21.42 individuals/100km2, followed by the reforested areas with 7.9 individuals/100km2. Only two detectons came from the dry dipterocarp forest despite both an extensive survey efort (4,069 trap nights) and available prey. Although the dipterocarp supported the second highest average rodent biomass, it lacked a key prey species, Maxomys surifer, possibly explaining low encounter rates in that habitat. Our results provide important baseline informaton concerning the populaton status of Leopard Cat in southeastern Asia. Further, our fndings corroborate with other studies that found a tolerance among Leopard Cats for degraded forests, highlightng the potental for forest fragments to serve as long-term conservaton areas for the species. Keywords: Camera trapping, Least Concern, predator-prey, prey availability, rodent biomass, Sakaerat Biosphere Reserve, southeastern Asia, spatally-explicit capture-recapture. DOI: htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.4553.11.4.13448-13458 | ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:E977B1A0-5E5E-420E-80CD-063DB1BE1838 Editor: Shomita Mukherjee, SACON, Coimbatore, India. Date of publicaton: 12 March 2019 (online & print) Manuscript details: #4553 | Received 04 September 2018 | Final received 05 March 2019 | Finally accepted 08 March 2019 Citaton: Petersen, W.J., T. Savini, R. Steinmetz & D. Ngoprasert (2019). Estmatng Leopard Cat Prionailurus bengalensis Kerr, 1792 (Carnivora: Felidae) density in a degraded tropical forest fragment in northeastern Thailand. Journal of Threatened Taxa 11(4): 13448–13458; htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.4553.11.4.13448-13458 Copyright: © Petersen et al. 2019. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of this artcle in any medium by adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Funding: Funding was provided by Thailand’s Natonal Science and Technology Development Agency (grant number P-17-50347). Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests. Author details: Wyatt J. Petersen is a wildlife biologist interested in the ecology and conservaton of small and large carnivores. He has a bachelor’s degree from Humboldt State University and a master’s from King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi. Tommaso Savini has been working for the past 15-years on the ecology of birds and mammals in the Southeast Asian tropical forests, looking at their behavioral ecology, landscape use, and conservaton. Robert Steinmetz has conducted ecological research, training, and site-based conservaton projects in Southeast Asia for over 20 years. His interests include the ecology and conservaton of bears and other large mammals. He also works closely with local people, conductng social science research on conservaton-related changes in human attudes and behavior. Dusit Ngoprasert is interested in conservaton of bears and several small carnivore species. His interests include populaton estmaton, habitat selecton, and distributon models. In additon, he conducts feld research and teaches a method course and assists students/collaborators to deploy appropriate methodologies and undertake data analysis. Author contributon: WJP, DN, RS, TS conceived the ideas and designed feld methodology; WJP collected the data; WJP, DN analyzed the data; WJP, DN, RS, TS contributed critcally to the drafs and all authors gave fnal approval for publicaton. Acknowledgements: We thank the Thai Department of Natonal Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservaton, Natonal Research Council of Thailand, Thailand Insttute of Scientfc and Technological Research, and reserve directors Taksin Artchawakom and Surachit Whitethorn for supportng and permitng our work. We would like to thank George Gale and Ronglarp Sukmasuang for both their support and feedback, Kate Oliver and Somsak Poompuang for their assistance in the feld, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. 13448 Leopard Cat in northeastern Thailand Petersen et al. INTRODUCTION artfcial open areas such as agriculture lands and human setlements (Chen et al. 2016). When confronted with a lack of rigorous populaton An associaton between Leopard Cats and degraded estmates, status assessments such as the IUCN Red habitats may refect the species diet, which consists List of Threatened Species must rely on expert opinion predominantly of murid rodents (e.g., Yasuma 1981; of trends in populaton abundance or geographic range Rabinowitz 1990; Grassman 1998; Grassman 2000; (Mace et al. 2008). This, however, can be problematc Grassman et al. 2005; Rajaratnam et al. 2007). Indeed, given both the subjectve nature of expert opinion rodent biomass is ofen elevated in degraded habitats (Regan et al. 2005) as well as the wide variaton in owing to either increased resource availability (e.g., populaton dynamics and threats faced across a species invertebrates), reduced predaton pressure, or both range. The Leopard Cat Prionailurus bengalensis, for (Lambert et al. 2006; Wells et al. 2007; Pimsai et al. 2014). example, is thought to be the most abundant small cat Yet, in most studies on Leopard Cat habitat use and diet, species in Asia due to its wide distributon and supposed prey distributon and abundance were not measured, tolerance towards human-modifed landscapes (Nowell despite these apparent associatons between predator, & Jackson 1996; Macdonald et al. 2010; Ross et al. 2010). prey, and habitat. Of the studies that did measure prey Yet, litle is known regarding Leopard Cat populaton distributon and abundance, several indicated that status in most parts of its range. Furthermore, recent Leopard Cats may preferentally select habitats based on studies suggest that Leopard Cat populatons, in at least the availability of a specifc key prey species, rather than some areas, are being adversely afected by habitat loss, overall prey abundance (Yasuma 1981; Rabinowitz 1990; fragmentaton, and poaching (e.g., Seto et al. 2012; Rajaratnam et al. 2007). Coudrat