Title:

Factors affecting lion (Panthero leo) spatial occurrence in the Zambezi Region, Namibia

Author(s):
Publication Year:
2014
Abstract:

Lion populations globally are on the decrease and their habitats are fragmenting. Despite their importance in the Zambezi Region in Namibia, very little research has yet been undertaken to understand their occurrence in this area. One of the primary motivations behind this study was the Kavango Zambezi Trans Frontier Conservation Area's (KAZA TFCA) need to identify trans-boundary movement of carnivores. The collaborative approach with the Ministry of Environment and Tourism in Namibia facilitated the collaring of lions in three National Parks. A number of species were collared and this study focuses on the occurrence of lions in the Zambezi Region. From the lion home range analysis we could see that the home-range sizes of the collared lions varied greatly across the study area. The difference in home range size is largely due to human pressure surrounding the protected areas. Geographically weighted regression assisted in understanding which were the main drivers of lion occurrence, but further investigation was needed using the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model for presence-only data. The factors that were investigated as possibly affecting the occurrence of lions included the following: rivers, land cover, land use, elevation and human activity. After pursuing various research models and manipulating data among all these factors, no single factor or combination of factors was found to be reliable predictors on lion occurrence in the study area. As is discussed in recommendations for further research in Chapter 6, it became clear that quantitative data cannot be used in isolation to predict where lions may occur. Keywords: Panthera leo, home range, Zambezi Region, geographically weighted regression, tLoCoH, Environmental correlates, human factors, Namibia.

Place:
Stellenbosch
Publisher:
Faculty of Science, University of Stellenbosch
Type:
M.Sc. Thesis
Item Type:
Thesis
Language:
en

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