Riparian forests crucial for survival of estuarine crocodiles
KINABATANGAN: Maintenance of riparian zones plays an important role in predator-prey relationships.
A new study, published in the journal PLoS ONE suggests that large overhanging trees play a key role in the nocturnal hunting of macaques by estuarine crocodiles.
“Our study finds that crocodile resting locations were influenced by the presence of large trees which were found to preferentially harbor sleeping macaques,”said first author Luke Evans, a postdoctoral researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science and with the Danau Girang Field Centre.
The study utilized a combination of GPS telemetry data and airborne laser imaging of riparian zones collected by the Carnegie Airborne Observatory. This high-resolution imagery enabled visualization of fine scale habitat use.
“By examining vegetation structure, we were able to establish that both macaques and crocodiles were preferentially selecting large, overhanging trees,”said Greg Asner of the Carnegie Airborne Observatory.
Large crocodiles only need to eat infrequently so these longterm strategies have the potential to be highly productive.
“Crocodile hunting usually consists of a ‘sit and wait’ strategy, this combined with the rather boisterous sleeping arrangements of long tailed macaques mean that crocodiles are ideally placed when individuals fall in the river,”Evans commented.
“This study, by demonstrating another importance of riparian vegetation, is another tool in the battle to retain, and restore, riparian connectivity throughout the lowlands of eastern Sabah,” said Benoit Goossens, director of Danau Girang Field Centre and Reader at Cardiff School of Biosciences.
“Moreover, the maintenance of primate prey sources has the potential to aid in mitigating human-crocodile conflict (nonstarving crocodiles will be unlikely to look for alternative preys such as humans), particularly in areas containing large number of crocodiles such as the Kinabatangan,”concluded Goossens.