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Community dynamics of the sympatric mammalian assemblage in snow leopard habitat | Lingyun Xiao's Profile

The relationships among different species are largely ignored in current conservation policies of China, which are mostly based on the threatened status of a species and use a strategy emphasizing surrogate species conservation in order to achieve ecosystem recovery targets. In this project we use the snow leopards Panthera uncia and its sympatric species to evaluate the effectiveness of this single-species approach. We aim to study the community dynamics and species interactions of snow leopards and sympatric mammal species on the Tibetan Plateau, using an extensive dataset of spatial-temporal activity patterns of a diverse set of mammalian species, collected by a long-term wildlife camera trap monitoring program covering 8000 km2 of snow leopard habitat. This project will improve conservation strategies based on a better understanding of each species' spatial-temporal niche, interactions and impacts of human disturbance.