It is sad that our paper came out on the day a dominant male tiger (BTR T-2) got killed on the National Highway -6. However, it raises relevant questions regarding the future of tigers in human-dominated landscapes.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/
We used landscape genetic simulations to model 86 different scenarios that incorporated impacts of future land-use change on inferred tiger-population connectivity and extinction.
Key findings and conservation implications:
We used landscape genetic simulations to model 86 different scenarios that incorporated impacts of future land-use change on inferred tiger-population connectivity and extinction.
Key findings and conservation implications:
- Dense human settlements and roads with high traffic are detrimental to tiger movement.
- Unplanned expansion of National Highways without mitigation measures significantly increases probability of extinction in many Protected Areas (for dispersal threshold of 500 km and 300 km)
- Protecting corridors, stepping-stone populations and increasing numbers would be critical for tiger survival into the next decade
- Our results highlight the immediate need for regional land-use management and planning exercises aimed at managing tiger populations as a network of PAs connected with corridors.
- Our simulations provide a means to quantitatively evaluate the effects of different land-use change scenarios on connectivity and extinction, linking basic science to land-use change policy and planned infrastructure development.
