As human population growth increases, there is urgent need for developing “working landscapes”, those which sustain both wildlife and human land-use needs. Coupling movement and diet information, we use large mammal habitat use patterns to understand what aspects of the ecosystem are critical for persistence of the species and which are best suited for human development (e.g. agriculture).
We evaluate the following questions:
Do fragmentation thresholds exist under which large mammals can no longer persist in a system?
How does large mammal behaviors related to diet and movement change in response to habitat loss and fragmentation?
Can we model sustainable spatial configuations of tropical forests that can sustain native species while also creating sufficient land for agricultural and pastoral use?
