Data from: Prey abundance and leopard diet in a plantation and rainforest landscape, Anamalai Hills, Western Ghats

Leopards use a wide range of habitats from natural forests to plantations
in human-dominated landscapes. Within interface areas, understanding
leopard ecology and diet can help in conservation management and conflict
avoidance. In a fragmented rainforest and plantation landscape in southern
India, we examined diet of large carnivores (with a focus on leopards)
using scat analysis with DNA-based identification of predator species, and
estimated relative abundance of prey species in different land uses
through transect surveys. Large carnivores predominantly consumed wild
prey species (98.1%) and domestic prey species contributed <2% to
overall prey biomass. For leopards, four wild prey species (Indian
muntjac, Indian spotted chevrotain, sambar and Indian porcupine)
contributed 95.1% of prey biomass, with the rest being minor wild prey
species (no livestock in identified scats). Wild prey species occurred
across the landscape but varied in relative abundance by land-use type,
with forest fragments supporting higher abundance of many species relative
to tea and coffee plantations. As large carnivores mainly depend on wild
prey and rainforest fragments act as refuges for these mammals within the
tea and coffee plantations, it is important to continue to retain or
restore these forest fragments. This dataset contains abundance data on
mammals (large carnivores and their prey species), using direct and
indirect sign surveys along line and belt transects, respectively, as well
as data on remains of prey species in large carnivore scats. This dataset
is part of a study (published paper under Related works) on leopard
ecology in a landscape containing commercial plantations of tea and
coffee, and rainforest fragments and protected area. These data were
collected between 2008 and 2010 in Valparai plateau and Anamalai Tiger
Reserve in the Western Ghats, India. The dataset contains following files:
1) Transect_details.csv 2) Transect_repeats.csv 3)
Mammals_Direct_signs.csv 4) Mammals_Indirect_signs.csv 5)
Large_carnivores_Indirect_signs.csv 6) Large_carnivore_Diet.csv More
details regarding the above files can be found in
ReadMe_Data_ColumnNames.txt. Update, version 2: Data were updated on 4 May
2020. There was an error in the following file: Large_carnivore_Diet.csv.
This file has been corrected and replaced in this update. All other files
are correct and therefore not replaced.