Interspecific interaction among mammals in Panna Tiger Reserve, Central India: Prey-predator dynamics

Interspecific interactions play a critical role in shaping ecosystem structure, species assemblages, and food web dynamics. Specifically, carnivores often exert top-down regulatory control on ecological communities, and the loss of apex predators can lead to profound changes in community composition and ecosystem function. Thus, carnivore reintroduction (trophic rewilding) has gained prominence as a strategy to restore ecological balance. However, the success of such efforts is contingent upon the availability of a sufficient prey base capable of supporting growing carnivore populations, underscoring the significance of bottom-up regulatory processes. Furthermore, species composition and assemblage patterns are strongly influenced by environmental variables and landscape characteristics. In this study, we examined the mammalian community of Panna Tiger Reserve (PTR) to evaluate the relative roles of top-down and bottom-up regulation in shaping mammalian assemblages. We utilized camera t..., Data collection
Field methods
We conducted camera trap (CT) surveys in PTR during the summer and winter seasons in the year of 2019. Camera traps were deployed in January-February for winter sampling (mean duration: 32 days, 475 CT stations) and May-June for summer sampling (mean duration: 38 days, 338 CT stations). Each station was equipped with a pair of motion-triggered digital camera traps (Cuddeback C1; www.cuddeback.com), installed within a 2 km² grid-cell framework (​Jhala et al., 2018​). The average inter-station distance was 1.05 km, enabling intensive spatial coverage. Cameras were placed on either side of animal trails, forest roads, riverbeds, or mid-slope locations, at a height of 30–40 cm above ground level, to optimize the detection of large carnivores (​Chen et al., 2009; Johnson et al., 2009; Evans et al., 2019​). All units were operational for 24 h a day and configured to capture a single photograph per trigger, with a 5-second delay between triggers. Camera traps were..., # Data from: Interspecific interaction among mammals in Panna Tiger Reserve, Central India: Prey-predator dynamics

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.3r2280gxc](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3r2280gxc)

## Description of the data and file structure

Data and File Structure Description:

Camera trap surveys in PTR (2019) were conducted in **winter (Jan–Feb: 475 stations, ~32 days) and summer (May–Jun: 338 stations, ~38 days)**. Paired cameras were placed ~1.05 km apart within 2 km² grids along trails and landscape features, operating 24/7 and checked every 15 days.

Environmental variables (100 m buffer) included canopy density, slope, and distances to villages and water, derived from raster data in R. Variables were standardized, and multicollinearity was tested using Pearson correlation (|r| ≥ 0.70).

### Files and variables

#### File: summer.csv

**Description:** 

##### Variables

* session: Sampling session or survey period during which the camera trap data were collected.
* trapcode: Un..., ,