Please cite this article in press as: Selvan, K.M., et al., Prey selection and food habits of three sympatric large carnivores in a tropical lowland forest of the Eastern Himalayan Biodiversity Hotspot. Mammal. Biol. (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2012.11.009 ARTICLE IN PRESS G Model MAMBIO-40590; No. of Pages 8 Mammalian Biology xxx (2013) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Mammalian Biology jou rnal h omepa ge: www.elsevier.com/locate/mambio Original Investigation Prey selection and food habits of three sympatric large carnivores in a tropical lowland forest of the Eastern Himalayan Biodiversity Hotspot K. Muthamizh Selvan, Gopi Govindhan Veeraswami ∗ , Salvador Lyngdoh, Bilal Habib, Syed Ainul Hussain Wildlife Institute of India, Chandrabani, PO Box 18, Dehradun 248001, India a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 19 July 2012 Accepted 30 November 2012 Keywords: Tiger Leopard Dhole Prey selection and Eastern Himalayas a b s t r a c t Prey selection and the feeding habits of tiger Panthera tigris, leopard Panthera pardus and Asiatic wild dog Cuon alpinus were investigated from June 2009 to December 2011 in Pakke Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh. A total of 422 scats were analyzed of which, 109 scats were of tigers, 150 were of leopard and 163 scats were of dholes. Multinomial Likelihood ratio test was used to estimate the prey selectivity of predators and Ivlev index, Pianka index were used to estimate prey preference and overlap respectively. Biomass consumption for three sympatric predators varied from 254.3 kg for dholes to 599.1 kg for tigers. Sambar, barking deer, wild pig were preyed more than their availability by all the predators. Ivlev index shows barking deer and sambar were preferred more than available prey for tiger where as leopard preferred sambar more than available and avoided barking deer. Dhole preferred more than available wild pig and barking deer. There was a high overlap between tiger–leopard (85.3%) and tiger–dhole (77.5%). To the best of our understanding, this study provides the first reliable information on prey selection and food habits of sympatric large carnivores in a protected area of Eastern Himalayan tropical rainforest. © 2012 Deutsche Gesellschaft für Säugetierkunde. Published by Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved. Introduction Niche differentiation and resource partitioning are exhibited when sympatric species occupy a common trophic level (Schoener, 1986). Differential use of food resources has been an important mode of resource partitioning in ecological communities (Karanth and Sunquist 2000) along with prey size (Gittleman 1985; Karanth and Sunquist 2000), activity patterns (Fedriani et al. 1999; Karanth and Sunquist 2000), space use patterns (Palomares et al. 1996; Durant 1998) and habitat use preference (Palomares et al. 1996). The life history strategies of carnivores depend upon various fac- tors like food, spacing pattern, habitat selection, distribution, social structure and movement pattern (Bekoff et al. 1984; Sunquist and Sunquist 1989) and among them, food is vital resource for carni- vores and partitioning the available food resources is critical for coexistence (Jedrezejewski et al. 1989; Lod’e 1991). Competition between the carnivores affect the population of the other species at lower trophic level (Terborgh 1992), exploitative competition occur when they share the same food resources (Caro and Stoner 2003). Mammalian carnivores use several strategies to adapt to the competition and predation risk caused by other predators (Hunter 2008). ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: gopigv@wii.gov.in (G.G. Veeraswami). The tiger (Panthera tigris), leopard (Panthera pardus) and Asiatic wild dog (Cuon alpinus) are sympatric in much of their range and share the same prey species. These carnivores depredate on large ungulate prey species like bovids, cervids and suids (Johnsingh 1992; Venkataraman et al. 1995; Karanth and Sunquist 1995). These carnivores play a major role in shaping the prey commu- nities in the ecosystems (Karanth et al. 2004). Studies conducted on prey selection among large carnivores in tropical forests, sug- gest that behavioral correlates contributes to the co existence of these carnivores (Karanth and Sunquist 2000) and also selec- tion of different species, different body size and age classes of prey (Johnsingh 1992; Karanth and Sunquist 1995) allow them to co-exist. These carnivores are morphologically specialized to kill larger prey species than themselves (Schaller 1967), studies on tigers shows it prefers to hunt on larger prey species (Karanth and Sunquist 1995; Biswas and Sankar 2002; Bagchi et al. 2003) where as leopard shows preference for large ungulates to small rodents and even arthropods (Bailey 1993). Dholes are pack hunting social carnivores which selects medium sized prey species (Johnsingh 1992; Karanth and Sunquist 1995; Acharya 2007; Ramesh 2011). Some of the earlier Indian studies on food habits on tiger, leop- ard and dhole have been conducted in central India (Biswas and Sankar 2002; Acharya 2007), in western India (Bagchi et al. 2003) and South India (Johnsingh 1983, 1992; Karanth and Sunquist 1995; Venkataraman et al. 1995; Andheria et al. 2007; Ramesh 2011). 1616-5047/$ – see front matter © 2012 Deutsche Gesellschaft für Säugetierkunde. Published by Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2012.11.009