WCS 3-Sentence Science

Large Carnivores Put in Long Workdays

February 7, 2020

CREDIT: WCS THAILAND

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present work by WCS’s Tim O’Brien and Julia Salador on daily activity and body mass in large carnivores.

1. Researchers looked at the amount of time spent active per day for 128 species of mammals in 19 tropical forests in 15 countries to see if there was a correlation between activity range and body mass.
2. Empirical data showed that activity ranges scaled positively with body mass for carnivores herbivores, omnivores and insectivores.
3. Despite the many factors that shape animal activity at local scales, they found a general pattern showing that large carnivores need more time active in a day to meet their energetic demands.

Study and Journal: “On the scaling of activity in tropical forest mammals” from Oikos
WCS Co-Author(s): Tim O’Brien, Senior Scientist, Conservation Measures ; Julia Salvador, WCS Ecuador

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.