The African lion ( Panthera leoLinnaeus, 1758) has evolved complex associations in which individuals’ survival is an interplay of cooperation among pride members. Although feeding behaviors of African lions are widely known, our understanding on how each age/sex class affect per capita intake of other individual members in a pride remains unclear. This study used long-term population monitoring data collected from 2003-2022 to assess how feeding group composition affects food per capita intakes of lion cubs, subadults, adult males and adult females. The results indicate that cub per capita food intake was reduced by increased numbers of cubs and subadults. For subadults, the per capita intake was reduced as the number of cubs, subadults and adult females increased. However, subadults increased their per capita intake rates when feeding together with both cubs and adult females. Adult females also showed competitive interactions when feeding at carcasses with cubs, subadults and fellow adult females. Nevertheless, the adult female per capita intake was increased when more females feed with cubs or subadults and when feeding in combination with cubs and adult males. For adult male lions, only increased numbers of adult females led to a reduced per capita intake at carcasses, reflecting competition. These varied effects on per capita food intake suggest how age and sex-based composition of feeding groups play a role in foraging success of the African lions and how food availability may influence the demographic composition of prides. Our findings emphasize the necessity of maintaining healthy prey populations to promote conservation of the few remaining African lion populations and ecosystems.

Geographic heterogeneous of both species-environment and inter-specific relationships play important roles in shaping the ecological characteristics of wildlife habitat selection and population distribution. However, how geographic heterogeneous affect the distribution of a target species in predator-prey systems, especially in human-dominated landscapes, is still unclear. Based on line transect survey and monitoring network, this study examined the spatial heterogeneity of habitat selection of Amur tiger and leopard, as large carnivores, and their main ungulate prey, wild boar and roe deer, in Northeast China, by applying logistic Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) in conjunction with global logistic regression (GLM). Our results suggested that, the geographic heterogeneity effects of habitat factors on the habitat selection of target species are manifested in the intensity and trends of the heterogeneous effects. Furthermore, ungulate prey exhibit preferences for particular types of habitats, subsequently promoting the distribution patterns of large felids. Our findings highlight the significance of spatial non-stationarity in ungulate prey habitat selections, and this may be the key to promoting large carnivores adapting to habitats around roads and reducing habitat isolation and reduction caused by road avoidance of ungulates.

The implications of migration for gut microbial community composition and function, and effects on population health of host animals are poorly known. In this study, we quantified migration patterns and gene flow for moose populations in northeast China and tested their relationships to recent climate warming. And we then characterized moose gut microbial composition and tested its relationships to moose migration patterns. We found that moose populations increasingly moved northward or to higher latitude due to late spring warming. Migratory and isolated moose populations differed in their gut microbe composition and frequency of different functional groups of bacteria that relate to digestion and diet composition. Gut microbe composition was also related to different environmental variables in isolated vs. migratory moose populations. Our results suggested that gut microbes of isolated moose populations were only related to altitude, whereas those in migratory moose populations were related to temperature, precipitation, longitude and latitude. We believe that differences in the taxonomic and functional composition of gut microbiota relating to digestion are adaptive. Consequently, this study highlights that special attention should be placed on isolated populations of moose, and ecological corridors or translocation of individuals may be needed for moose conservation to allow persistence in the face of global warming.

The nocturnal activities of predators and prey are influenced by several factors, including physiological adaptations, habitat quality and, we suspect, corresponds to changes in brightness of moonlight according to moon phase. In this study, we used a dataset from 102 camera traps to explore which factors are related with the activity pattern of North China leopards (Panthera pardus japonensis) in Shanxi Tieqiaoshan Provincial Nature Reserve (TPNR), China. We found that nocturnal activities of leopards were irregular during four different lunar phases, and while not strictly lunar philic or lunar phobic, their temporal activity was highest during the brighter moon phases (especially the last quarter) and lower during the new moon phase. On the contrary, roe deer (Capreolus pygargus) exhibited lunar philic activity, while wild boar (Sus scrofa) and Tolai hare (Lepus tolai) were evidently lunar phobic, with high and low temporal activity during the full moon, respectively. In terms of temporal overlap, that there was positive overlap between leopards and their prey species, including roe deer (Capreolus pygargus) and Tolai hare (Lepus tolai), while leopard activity did not dip to the same low level of wild boar during the full moon phase. Generally, our results suggested that besides moonlight risk index (MRI), cloud cover and season have diverse effects on leopard and prey nocturnal activity. Finally, distinct daytime and nighttime habitats were identified, with leopards, wild boar and Tolai hare all using lower elevations at night and higher elevations during the day, while leopards and roe deer were closer to secondary roads during the day than at night.