Tiger and Leopard Habitat Use in Bhutan revealed by a Bayesian Multi-Scale Spatial Occupancy Model

Singye works as a Principal Forestry Officer, specializing in felinology and conservation biology, at the Department of Forests and Park Services, Royal Government of Bhutan.
Her DPhil research at WildCRU, University of Oxford, takes an interdisciplinary approach, integrating insights from ecological and social sciences to develop a comprehensive understanding of the complexities and challenges associated with conserving large felids, notably the tiger and common leopard in Bhutan.

In this talk, she will present findings from a Bayesian multi-scale spatial occupancy model. Her research applies state-of-the-art approaches that explicitly account for imperfect detection and spatial autocorrelation, two critical challenges in ecological analysis. By incorporating scale-optimised environmental predictors, her work provides a robust assessment of habitat use, spatial processes, and species interactions.

The study offers a comparative analysis of the ecological niches, range dynamics, and co-occurrence patterns of tigers and leopards, and examines how these species respond to environmental and anthropogenic pressures. These insights contribute to a more nuanced understanding of large carnivore ecology and provide actionable evidence to inform conservation planning in Bhutan and beyond, particularly in the face of accelerating development and increasing pressure on wildlife habitats.