Interacting effects of surface water and temperature on wild and domestic large herbivore aggregations and contact rates

Earth’s climate is rapidly changing, bringing forth questions of how domestic and wild animals will alter their behavior in response to increasing temperatures and dryland expansion. Dwindling water availability will likely impact animal behavior and water foraging, potentially increasing animal aggregations and interspecific contacts. These interspecific contacts are especially important for competition, predation, and disease transmission among wildlife and domestic animals.
In this study, we analyzed interspecific wildlife and cattle contacts using two years of camera trap data at an experimental water manipulation site at a conservancy in central Kenya.
We found that on average, the hourly probability of any interspecific contact was approximately 3.4 times higher at water sources versus drained water sources, and 18 times higher than surrounding matrix areas, and that this relationship was amplified by dry and hot conditions.
Species-specific analyses revealed variation in the magn..., , , # Interacting effects of surface water and temperature on wild and domestic large herbivore aggregations and contact rates

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.02v6wwqc5](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.02v6wwqc5)

This dataset includes data derived from camera traps set at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia County, Kenya. The contents of the package are as follows:

1. `avg_hrly_temp`: a dataframe containing mean hourly temperatures across sites.
2. `contact_analysis_2024_functions`:* *R functions to fit species-specific models (called by `contact_analysis_2024_publication`)
3. `contact_analysis_2024_publication`: Code used to produce the results presented in the main manuscript
4. `contact_by_species_by_hour`: a dataframe containing average hourly activity across sites at Ol Pejeta Conservancy for all periods that cameras were running in a given location. These data are used to fit species-specific models.
5. `contact_data`: a dataframe containing animal activity data for all camera triggers ...