Routes to survival: identification and prioritization of critical corridors for large mammal conservation in southern India

Context Sustaining functional connectivity is imperative for the persistence of wide-ranging large mammals in a human-dominated, fragmented landscape. Objectives Our study aimed to analyze the spatial pattern of habitat selection of tiger ( Panthera tigris ), leopard ( Panthera pardus ), dhole ( Cuon alpinus ), Asian elephant ( Elephas maximus ), and gaur ( Bos gaurus ), and map the habitat connectivity along the Western and Eastern Ghats part of Tamil Nadu, India. Methods We used field-survey data from 113 grids of 100 km 2 each to estimate species-specific resource selection functions and resistance surfaces for least-cost path (LCP) and cost-weighted distance (CWD) analyses. Results Our results revealed that the habitat selection of all species, except leopard, were highest within Protected Areas (PAs). Leopard showed a higher habitat selection along fragmented outside PAs, that are located adjacent to PAs. On the contrary, tiger habitat usage was largely confined to PAs. Withal, all the study species exhibited least habitat selection and permeability around highly fragmented landscapes, located farther from PAs. Accordingly, as the distance from PAs increased, CWD also increased. Our LCP maps identified several pinch points for large mammal movement particularly outside PAs, including fragmented parts of Nilgiris, Gudalur, Coimbatore, and Dharmapuri Forest Divisions, highlighting critical regions for restoring core habitat connectivity. Conclusions Our findings emphasize that connectivity pinch points often overlap with highly fragmented, human-large mammal conflict areas, causing greater barriers for large mammal movement. This calls for targeted management of outside PAs, particularly, PA-agriculture interfaces for herbivores, while improving prey availability within PAs may better support large carnivores.