Data from: Caching reduces kleptoparasitism in a solitary, large felid

Food caching is a common strategy used by a diversity of animals, including carnivores, to store and/or secure food. Despite its prevalence, the drivers of caching behaviour, and its impacts on individuals, remain poorly understood, particularly for short-term food cachers.
Leopards Panthera pardus exhibit a unique form of short-term food caching, regularly hoisting, storing and consuming prey in trees. We explored the factors motivating such behaviour among leopards in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, South Africa, associated with four not mutually exclusive hypotheses: food-perishability, consumption-time, resource-pulse and kleptoparasitism-avoidance.
Using data from 2032 prey items killed by 104 leopards from 2013 to 2015, we built generalized linear mixed models to examine how hoisting behaviour, feeding time and the likelihood of a kill being kleptoparasitized varied with leopard sex and age, prey size and vulnerability, vegetation, elevation, climate, and the immediate and long-term risk posed by dominant competitors.
Leopards hoisted 51% of kills. They were more likely to hoist kills of an intermediate size, outside of a resource pulse and in response to the presence of some competitors. Hoisted kills were also fed on for longer than non-hoisted kills. At least 21% of kills were kleptoparasitized, mainly by spotted hyaenas Crocuta crocuta. Kills were more likely to be kleptoparasitized at lower temperatures and if prey were larger, not hoisted, and in areas where the risk of encountering hyaenas was greatest. Female leopards that suffered higher rates of kleptoparasitism exhibited lower annual reproductive success than females that lost fewer kills.
Our results strongly support the kleptoparasitism-avoidance hypothesis and suggest hoisting is a key adaptation that enables leopards to coexist sympatrically with high densities of competitors. We further argue that leopards may select smaller-sized prey than predicted by optimal foraging theory, to balance trade-offs between kleptoparasitic losses and the energetic gains derived from killing larger prey.
Although caching may provide the added benefits of delaying food perishability and enabling consumption over an extended period, the behaviour primarily appears to be a strategy for leopards, and possibly other short-term cachers, to reduce the risks of kleptoparasitism.

贮食行为（food caching）是包括食肉动物在内的多种动物用以储存、保护食物的常见策略。尽管该行为广泛存在，但学界对其演化驱动因素及对个体的影响仍知之甚少，针对短期贮食者的研究尤为匮乏。
花豹（Panthera pardus）展现出一种独特的短期贮食形式：定期将猎物拖拽至树上储存、进食。我们以南非萨比沙禁猎区的花豹为研究对象，探究驱动其该行为的潜在因素，并检验4个非互斥假说：食物易腐性假说（food-perishability）、进食时长假说（consumption-time）、资源脉冲假说（resource-pulse）以及防盗食寄生假说（kleptoparasitism-avoidance）。
本研究整合2013至2015年间104只花豹的2032件猎物捕杀记录，构建广义线性混合模型（generalized linear mixed models），分析花豹的拖拽上树行为、进食时长，以及猎物遭遇盗食寄生的概率如何随花豹性别与年龄、猎物体型与易被捕食脆弱性、植被条件、海拔、气候，以及优势竞争者带来的即时与长期风险发生变化。
花豹会将51%的猎物拖拽上树。它们更倾向于将中等体型的猎物、在非资源脉冲时段以及面对部分竞争者时拖拽上树。被拖拽上树的猎物的进食时长也长于未被上树处理的猎物。至少21%的猎物遭遇了盗食寄生，主要盗食者为斑鬣狗（Crocuta crocuta）。在较低温度下、猎物体型更大且未被拖拽上树，以及斑鬣狗遭遇风险较高的区域，猎物更易遭遇盗食寄生。遭遇盗食寄生频率更高的雌性花豹，其年度繁殖成功率低于盗食寄生损失更少的雌性个体。
研究结果强烈支持防盗食寄生假说，表明拖拽上树是花豹得以与高密度竞争者同域共存的关键适应性策略。我们进一步提出，花豹可能会选择体型小于最优觅食理论（optimal foraging theory）预测值的猎物，以平衡盗食寄生损失与捕杀大体型猎物获得的能量收益之间的权衡关系。
尽管贮食行为还可带来延缓食物腐坏、延长进食时段的额外益处，但该行为本质上更像是花豹（或许还有其他短期贮食者）用以降低盗食寄生风险的策略。