Hunting of hunted: an ensemble modeling approach to evaluate suitable habitats for caracals in India

Abstract

Background: Large-scale hunting and various anthropogenic pressures in the recent past have pushed the Asiatic caracal (Caracal caracal schmitzi), an elusive medium-sized and locally threatened felid species towards local extinction in India. Though widely distributed historically, it has been sparsely reported from several regions of central and northern states in India till twentieth century. Later, the species distribution became confined only to the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, which have had reported sightings in the twenty-first century. In order to highlight the potentially suitable habitats for Asiatic caracals in India, we targeted forth-filtering of the spatial model ensemble by creating and utilizing the validated and spatially thinned species presence information (n = 69) and related ecological variables (aridity, NDVI, precipitation seasonality, temperature seasonality, terrain ruggedness), filtered with anthropological variable (nightlight). Results: Out of eight spatial prediction models, the two most parsimonious models, Random Forest (AUC 0.91) and MaxEnt (AUC 0.89) were weighted and ensembled. The ensemble model indicated several clustered habitats, covering 1207.83 km2 areas in Kachchh (Gujarat), Aravalli mountains (Rajasthan), Malwa plateau (Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh), and Bundelkhand region (Madhya Pradesh) as potentially suitable habitats for caracals. Output probabilities of pixels were further regressed with converted vegetation height data within selected highly potential habitats, i.e., Ranthambore Kuno Landscape (RKL) (suitability ~ 0.44 + 0.03(vegetation height) **, R2 = 0.27). The regression model inferred a significant positive relation between vegetation height and habitat suitability, hence the lowest ordinal class out of three classes of converted vegetation height was masked out from the RKL, which yielded in an area of 567 km2 as potentially highly suitable habitats for caracals, which can be further proposed as survey areas and conservation priority areas for caracals. Conclusion: The study charts out the small pockets of landscape in and around dryland protected areas, suitable for caracal in the Indian context, which need attention for landscape conservation.