Krithi Karanth

• Ph.D
• Researcher at Centre for Wildlife Studies

Aim Information on patterns and determinants of spatial distributions remains poorly available for many widespread species of conservation importance. The sloth bear Melursus ursinus in the Indian subcontinent exemplifies this requirement. We aimed at assessing (1) distribution patterns of sloth bears at two spatial scales, (2) ecological and anthr...

Though human-modified tropical landscapes are increasingly well studied, the processes that influence and govern biodiversity outcomes, especially in commodity production landscapes (e.g. coffee, rubber, arecanut), remain poorly understood. A review of the existing literature reveals that research in general focuses on individual components of a ca...

a b s t r a c t Preventing and mitigating human–wildlife conflicts are a top conservation priority, particularly in India where wildlife and high densities of people co-occur. We surveyed 1972 households from 1371 villages in a 7449-km 2 area surrounding five reserves in the Western Ghats. Our observational study modeled self-reported crop and live...

Understanding species distribution patterns has direct ramifications for the conservation of endangered species, such as the Asian elephant Elephas maximus. However, reliable assessment of elephant distribution is handicapped by factors such as the large spatial scales of field studies, survey expertise required, the paucity of analytical approache...

Lion‐tailed macaques ( Macaca silenus ), endemic to the Western Ghats of India, are increasingly threatened by habitat loss and degradation, and are vulnerable to environmental change. Insights into their spatial ecology can reveal the strategies that enable these macaques to navigate and use spatially complex heterogeneous spaces. This is crucial...

Environmental education has the potential to help reduce negative human–wildlife interactions by increasing positive attitudes toward wildlife and providing participants with knowledge and skills that can help mitigate conflict situations and promote safety. To promote positive human–wildlife relationships, effective programs could be implemented w...

How do foresters in India understand the foundational and proximate causes of negative interactions between humans and wildlife? In this article we identify five distinct epistemological orientations towards managing human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) and drivers of those conflicts among staff at differing levels of the Indian forest bureaucracy across...

Otter populations are declining across Asia, especially outside protected areas. In landscapes shared by humans and otters, it is vital to understand the factors affecting human-otter coexistence. We conducted 551 questionnaire surveys and used mixed methods to evaluate human-otter interactions and people’s attitudes towards otters across a 3,300 k...

Shared spaces in Africa and Asia accommodate both humans and big cats. This engenders rare but distinctive cases of human fatalities by lions, tigers, and leopards. Among big cats, leopards have the widest range and occur even among high densities of humans. This increased potential for encounters with humans results in attacks, exemplified most by...

Human–wildlife interactions can have negative consequences when they involve large carnivores. Spatial risk modelling could serve as a useful management approach for predicting and pre‐emptively mitigating negative interactions. We present a mechanistic modelling framework and examine interactions between humans and sloth bears ( Melursus ursinus )...

Nature-based tourism is rising in popularity in developing countries. This presents a challenge for protected area (PA) managers forcing them to revisit management strategies to balance revenue generation while maintaining ecological integrity. Identifying tourists’ preference for nature-viewing can aid in improved tourism management while simultan...

Global land use change has resulted in the loss and fragmentation of habitats and amplified the pace of species extinction. With carnivores being disproportionately at risk of range contraction, restoration is an important strategy to counter the impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation. While protection of public lands has been the cornerstone of...

Global tropical forests have been modified and fragmented by commodity agroforests, leading to significant alterations in ecological communities. Nevertheless, these production landscapes offer secondary habitats that support and sustain local biodiversity. In this study, we assess community level and species‐specific responses of amphibians to lan...

Global land-use changes and rapid infrastructure development necessitate identification and conservation of wildlife corridors. Connectivity through corridors is shaped by species' structural, ecological and behavioral constraints. In multi-use landscapes, species' interactions with humans could additionally influence connectivity. Using the tiger...

Unplanned land-use change surrounding protected areas (PAs) can lead to degradation and fragmentation of wildlife habitats, thereby placing tremendous pressure on PAs especially in tropical countries. Incentivizing the expansion of habitats beyond PAs will not only benefit wildlife but also has the potential to create livelihood opportunities for m...

Unplanned land-use change surrounding protected areas (PAs) can lead to degradation and fragmentation of wildlife habitats, thereby placing tremendous pressure on PAs especially in tropical countries. Incentivizing the expansion of habitats beyond PAs will not only benefit wildlife but also has the potential to create livelihood opportunities for m...

Although protected areas (PAs) have long been considered a successful conservation strategy, more recent research has highlighted their ecological and sociological limitations. The extant PA network is constrained by land availability and exacerbates cultural, political, and social conflicts over access to resources. Consequently, the importance of...

People’s attitudes influence the nature of their interactions with wildlife and support for conservation. Globally, many environmental education programs seek to influence children’s attitudes toward wildlife and the environment. Understanding these attitudes requires assessment tools that are appropriate to the context and culture. However, most t...

Reducing the costs from human–wildlife conflict, mostly borne by marginal rural households, is a priority for conservation. We estimate the mean species-specific cost for households suffering damages from one of 15 major species of wildlife in India. Our data are from a survey of 5,196 households living near 11 wildlife reserves in India, and self-...

Tigers are in serious decline from anthropogenic pressures: prey depletion by human hunting, killing of tigers for conflict mitigation or trade in their body parts, and habitat loss or degradation. In spite of conservation efforts over 50 years, wild tigers now occupy <7% of their historic range. Reproducing tiger populations survive in <1% of the...

Our study titled "The balancing act: Maintaining leopard-wild prey equilibrium could offer economic benefits to people in a shared forest landscape of central India" used an occupancy framework to provide baseline information on patterns and determinants of leopard occurrence and conflict in a human-dominated landscape. We also examined the role of...

Tropical and subtropical plantation agriculture has been shown to be compatible with the conservation of biodiversity, but the specific practices, conditions, and farmer strategies associated with such diversity remain poorly understood. In the ecologically rich region of India’s Western Ghats, specifically, farm-scale tree species diversity is a k...

Increasing livestock grazing in forests has intensified human-wildlife conflicts and caused habitat degradation for threatened species. To balance conservation and local community development, it is crucial to understand if livestock loss in natural habitats plays a role in household livelihood decisions. We used the giant panda habitat in China an...

Human-wildlife interactions resulting in conflict remains a global conservation challenge, requiring innovative solutions to ensure the persistence of wildlife amidst people. Wild Seve was established in July 2015 as a conservation intervention program to assist people affected by conflict to file and monitor claims and receive ex-gratia payments f...

Human land use and activity results in the loss of habitat and biodiversity, and alters how animals move through landscapes. Spatially explicit information on where animal movement is affected at large spatial scales is crucial for prioritizing conservation efforts. We evaluated landscape permeability to movement in two conservation priority landsc...

Linear infrastructure development is an important driver of forest fragmentation leading to habitat and biodiversity loss as well as disruption of critical ecosystem processes. The tropical forests of India are increasingly impacted by infrastructure development. Little quantitative information is available on the extent of fragmentation due to lin...

Background Large carnivores maintain the stability and functioning of ecosystems. Currently, many carnivore species face declining population sizes due to natural and anthropogenic pressures. The leopard, Panthera pardus , is probably the most widely distributed and highly adaptable large felid globally, still persisting in most of its historic ran...

Forest conservation includes stemming deforestation as well as preserving its vegetation condition. Traditional Protected Area (PA) effectiveness evaluations have assessed changes in forest extent but have mostly ignored vegetation condition. Tiger Reserves (TRs) are India’s PAs with highest protection and management resources. We used a before-aft...

Large carnivores maintain the stability and functioning of ecosystems. Currently, many carnivore species face declining population sizes due to natural and anthropogenic pressures. The leopard, Panthera pardus, is probably the most widely distributed and adaptable large carnivore, still persisting in most of its historic range. However, we lack sub...

Many carnivores inhabit human-dominated landscapes outside protected reserves. Spatially explicit assessments of carnivore distributions and livestock depredation patterns in human-use landscapes are crucial for minimizing negative interactions and fostering coexistence between people and predators. India harbours 23% of the world's carnivore speci...

India has seen remarkable growth in nature-based tourism. However, the current approach has had limited benefits to conservation, protected areas and local communities. With a surge in ecotourism initiatives, there has been a concurrent increase in associated conceptual and applied research. Based on the existing studies, quantitative and qualitati...

Exclusion of people from wilderness to minimize anthropogenic threats to wildlife forms the historical basis for the establishment of some protected areas. Conservation efforts to resettle people from protected areas remain controversial as they often fail to address people's expectations and rebuild lives, especially in Africa and South Asia. Rese...

India, a megabiodiversity nation, is home to 4,800 species and 1.3 billion people. The proximity of people and wildlife produces a wide variety of human–wildlife interactions particularly with forest-dwelling communities embedded deep within protected areas (PAs). We evaluated people–park relationships through the 421 families in Thengumarahada loc...

The effectiveness of compensation payments in mitigating and resolving human-wildlife conflict is globally debated. We examined procedures, types, and payments made for incidents reported in India from 2010 to 2015. Among India's 29 states, 22 (76%) compensated for crop loss, 18 (62%) for property damage, 26 (90%) for livestock depredation, and 28...

Shade coffee has shown great promise in providing crucial habitats for biodiversity outside formal protected areas. Insectivorous bats have been understudied in coffee, although they may provide pest control services. We investigated the influence of local and landscape-level features of coffee farms on aerial insectivorous bats in Chikmagalur dist...

Spatial correlograms of estimated species richness and activity. Error bars denote standard deviations. (TIFF)

Schematic of the Variable Area Transect (VAT) method. The line in the centre is the baseline transect, the rectangles on either side are the cells, open circles are trees. The width of the cells (d1-d8) is the distance of the fifth farthest tree in that cell. The length of each cell is 10m. (TIF)

Representative call pulses of bats detected in the study. A time expansion detector was used for acoustic monitoring. Therefore, for actual values of time and frequency, divide values of time on x-axis by a factor of 10 and multiply values of frequency on y-axis by a factor of 10. (TIFF)

Acoustic recording data and predictor variables in Chikmagalur district. Observed and estimated species richness, total and guildwise bat activity, predictor variables at each of the 20 sites sampled in 2015–16. Predicted and estimated species richness, predicted and observed total activity, predictor variables at each of the 9 sites sampled in 201...

This study examines how transformations of a regional rural economy have produced new geographies of encounter between agricultural communities, their livestock, and carnivores surrounding Bandipur National Park in Karnataka, India. We analyze state discourses of human-wildlife conflict alongside the perspectives of rural agricultural communities a...

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has not been fixed in the paper.

Coffee is a major tropical commodity crop that can provide supplementary habitat for native wildlife. In Asia, coffee production is an increasingly important driver of landscape transformation and shifts between different coffee species is a major dimension of agroforestry trends. Yet few studies have compared the ecological impacts of conversion b...

Introduction: Understanding and managing human–wildlife interactions remains a global conservation priority. Most often, these interactions that emerge from literature focus on negative interactions such as crop damage, livestock loss, property dam- age, human injury and death (Treves and Karanth 2003; Graham et al. 2005; Madden 2004; Lagendijk and...

In India, human-wildlife conflict (HWC) around protected areas (PAs) has magnified social conflict over conservation and development priorities. India introduced financial compensation for HWC as a policy solution to simultaneously promote human security while protecting biodiversity. We evaluate compensation as a mitigation policy for HWC around f...

Human–wildlife interactions affect people's livelihoods, attitudes and tolerance towards wildlife and wildlife reserves. To investigate the effect of such interactions on people's attitudes and livelihoods, we surveyed 2,233 households located around four wildlife reserves in Rajasthan, India. We modelled respondents’ attitudes towards wildlife and...

Preventing loss of crops, threats to livestock, damage to property, and human injury and death attributed to wildlife are conservation challenges. We surveyed over 5,000 households around 11 reserves in India to examine these issues and mitigation efforts. Crops were lost by 71% of households, livestock by 17%, and human injury and death were repor...

Globally, protected areas have long been the corner stone of biodiversity conservation efforts. In India's Western Ghats, small and isolated protected areas are embedded in a matrix of multiple land-uses, most of which include agroforests. These agroforests are being increasingly recognized for their supplementary role in conserving wildlife. We ex...

In the introductory chapter, we summarised the impacts of human pressures on the distribution and abundance of large mammals, forest birds and vegetation across the world. Chapter 4 (Results and Findings) provided quantitative evidence on the effects of varied management regimes on different components of biodiversity in each of the three levels of...

Plants, birds and large herbivorous mammals were the key biodiversity components selected for the investigations. These major biodiversity elements were indicators of ongoing ecological changes in the study area. Vegetation, being the primary producers in the ecosystem, is the cardinal component of the habitat and is the key determinant of other bi...

Global biodiversity is disappearing at an alarming rate. Habitat loss, fragmentation, habitat degradation, direct pressures like hunting and other extractive human uses are all contributing to the loss of biodiversity, which in turn are leading to the loss of vital ecosystem services. Different conservation strategies have been proposed for arresti...

The Nagarahole–Kallahalla–Thitimathi sub-landscape was chosen as our study site after examining other possible sites in the Malenad landscape (Karanth et al. 2011) of the Western Ghats of Karnataka (Das et al. 2006). The study area was found to be the most suitable because it falls under three different forest management regimes and provides a cont...

The effects of environmental variables (measured by NDVI) and management variables (measured by human disturbance levels across management regimes) on community composition, species richness and species abundances of the targeted biodiversity components (plants, birds and mammals) are presented in this chapter. Human impacts appear to be key driver...

This book demonstrates how varying levels of human disturbance manifested through different management regimes influence composition, richness, diversity and abundance of key mammal, bird and plant species, even within ecologically similar habitats. Based on our results, we show the critical importance of the ‘wildlife preservation’ approach for ef...

There is increasing evidence of large carnivore presence outside protected areas, globally. Although this spells conservation success through population recoveries, it makes carnivore persistence in human-use landscapes tenuous. The widespread distribution of leopards in certain regions of India typifies this problem. We obtained information on leo...

Large herbivores respond to seasonal changes in resource availability through habitat selection. Understanding variations in habitat choice is crucial for targeting conservation efforts, particularly for endangered, wide-ranging species, such as the Asian elephant. We assessed patterns and determinants of elephant habitat use during the dry season,...

Wildlife reserves are becoming increasingly isolated from the surrounding human-dominated landscapes particularly in Asia. It is imperative to understand how species are distributed spatially and temporally in and outside reserves, and what factors influence their occurrence. This study surveyed 7500 km(2) landscape surrounding five reserves in the...

Aim Information on patterns and determinants of spatial distributions remains poorly available for many widespread species of conservation importance. The sloth bear Melursus ursinus in the Indian subcontinent exemplifies this requirement. We aimed at assessing (1) distribution patterns of sloth bears at two spatial scales, (2) ecological and anthr...

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v513/n7517/abs/nature13717.html#comment-64445

Although they play a critical role in shaping ecological communities, many threatened predator species are data-deficient. The Dhole Cuon alpinus is one such rare canid with a global population thought to be <2500 wild individuals. We assessed habitat occupancy patterns of dholes in the Western Ghats of Karnataka, India, to understand ecological an...

Indian marine fisheries have expanded four-fold in the last 50 years in the form of open-access commons. Although studies predict that fish stocks are on the decline there is little evidence that these declines are being countered by changes in either fishing regulations or fishing practices. Fishermen rarely comply with regulations, instead operat...

A decline in species richness moving from equatorial regions to polar regions is a common, but not universal, macroecological pattern. Many studies have focused on this pattern, but few have focused on how the vital rates responsible for species richness patterns, local rates of species extinction and turnover, vary with latitude. We examine patter...

Crop and livestock losses to wildlife are a concern for people neighboring many protected areas (PAs) and can generate opposition to conservation. Examining patterns of conflict and associated tolerance is important to devise policies to reduce conflict impacts on people and wildlife. We surveyed 398 households from 178 villages within 10 km of Ran...

A recent study of tigers in Chitwan, Nepal (1) stirred controversy by challenging the “source-sink” approach that underlies current global tiger conservation strategies (2). The observed lack of difference in tiger density estimates inside the protected area compared with a multiple-use area outside is offered as evidence. Based on this result, the...

Tourism turf wars: debating the benefits and costs of wildlife tourism in India - Volume 47 Issue 1 - Prerna Bindra, Krithi K. Karanth

Mitigating crop and livestock loss to wildlife and improving compensation distribution are important for conservation efforts in landscapes where people and wildlife co-occur outside protected areas. The lack of rigorously collected spatial data poses a challenge to management efforts to minimize loss and mitigate conflicts. We surveyed 735 househo...

Models included in the model sets for crop and livestock loss. (DOC)

Models included in the model set for compensation distribution. (DOC)

Correlation matrices for variable selection for crop loss and livestock loss. (DOC)

With decisions like the Supreme Court's interim order banning tourism inside tiger sanctuaries becoming inevitable in the face of increasing political and executive resistance to expansion of protected nature reserves on public land, the issue of tiger tourism calls for a pragmatic approach that can resolve contradictions between the burgeoning tou...

Wildlife tourism is a growing phenomenon, particularly in emerging economies such as India. Purported benefits of this growth in tourism include greater tourist interest in, and support for, conservation. We examined the interest, awareness and potential for this support in three prominent Indian national parks, Nagarahole, Kanha and Ranthambore. P...

Hunting is one of the greatest conservation challenges facing tropical wildlife. Wildlife in Indian tropical forests are vulnerable to hunting, although data on hunting impacts from the region are limited. We use a meta-analysis of 143 hunting studies from India to identify the species and geographic regions most at risk, and to assess their legal...

High densities of people living around protected areas (PAs) in South Asia require management strategies to balance conservation goals and livelihood needs. Based on a survey of 777 households around five PAs in India and Nepal, this paper provides a comparative perspective of Indian and Nepali households' views of protected area benefits and costs...

This article focuses on understanding the patterns of species richness and explaining the observed patterns for Indian primates, carnivores and herbivores. Field observations of local experts and occupancy modelling permit estimation of individual species occurrence, richness within groups, and overall species richness. Average estimated richness w...

Previous research indicates that numbers of visits to protected areas (PAs) are declining in wealthy countries while foreign visitation is increasing in less-wealthy countries. We focus on India to discern trends and implications of nature-based tourism in an emerging economy. We interviewed 91% of tourist facilities around 10 PAs to assess visitat...

Protected areas (PAs) often depend on landscapes surrounding them to maintain flows of organisms, water, nutrients, and energy. Park managers have little authority over the surrounding landscape although land use change and infrastructure development can have major impacts on the integrity of a PA. The need for scientifically-based regional-scale l...

Global and regional species conservation efforts are hindered by poor distribution data and range maps. Many Indian primates face extinction, but assessments of population status are hindered by lack of reliable distribution data. We estimated the current occurrence and distribution of 15 Indian primates by applying occupancy models to field data f...

Mammal extinctions are widespread globally, with South Asian species being most threatened. We examine local extinctions of 25 mammals in India. We use historical records to obtain a set of locations at which each species was known to have been present at some time in the last 200 years. We then use occupancy estimation models to draw inferences ab...

1. Many Indian mammals face range contraction and extinction, but assessments of their population status are hindered by the lack of reliable distribution data and range maps. 2. We estimated the current geographical ranges of 20 species of large mammals by applying occupancy models to data from country-wide expert. We modelled species in relation...

Biodiversity conservation issues are complex and contentious. In this dissertation, I focus on Indian mammal conservation science, management, as well as policy issues that shape these factors. I am particularly interested in, where and which mammals are extinction prone, and what factors promote species persistence in human-dominated landscapes. I...

Biodiversity conservation issues are often contentious and complex. Polarized debates on the effectiveness of protected areas and role of people inside them, charismatic species as conservation foci, and on specific policy initiatives are common among Indian and global conservationists. We surveyed Indian conservationists about the conservation eff...

The relocation and resettlement of people from nature reserves is a controversial issue in the conservation community. The perceived poor success rate of resettlement efforts, combined with availability of few well-documented studies, warrants a detailed examination of this issue. I have analyzed a relocation and resettlement project in India’s Bha...

Habitat fragmentation, land cover change and biodiversity loss are often associated with village communities in protected areas, but the extent and intensity of such impacts are often inadequately assessed. We record resource use and depletion by human inhabitants by conducting ecological surveys in six villages and social surveys in all 13 village...