Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T15:18:55.920Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 4 - Adaptations and Competitive Interactions of Tropical Asian Bear Species Define Their Biogeography: Past, Present, and Future

from Part I - Systematics, Ecology, and Behavior

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2020

Vincenzo Penteriani
Affiliation:
Spanish Council of Scientific Research (CSIC)
Mario Melletti
Affiliation:
WPSG (Wild Pig Specialist Group) IUCN SSC
Get access

Summary

Three potentially competing bear species inhabit tropical Asia: the sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), sun bear (Helarctos malayanus), and Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus). Sun bears (30–80 kg), the smallest species of bear in the world, are about half the size of black bears (65–150 kg) and sloth bears (55–145 kg). What factors generate the separation of sloth bears geographically from black and sun bears? What factors facilitate the extensive sympatry of black bears and sun bears? How are these patterns structured by evolutionary history and competition between bear species, and what mechanisms facilitate their coexistence or maintain their separation? Has current forest loss and degradation benefited one species over another? If so, has interspecific competition played a part? These questions are the focus of this chapter.

Type
Chapter
Information
Bears of the World
Ecology, Conservation and Management
, pp. 45 - 52
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akhtar, N., Singh Bargali, H. & Chauhan, N. P. S. (2004). Sloth bear habitat use in disturbed and unprotected areas of Madhya Pradesh, India. Ursus 15(2): 203211.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bacon, A. M., Demeter, F., Duringer, P., et al. (2008). The Late Pleistocene Duoi U’Oi cave in northern Vietnam: palaeontology, sedimentology, taphonomy and palaeoenvironments. Quaternary Science Reviews 27(15–16): 16271654.Google Scholar
Carbone, C., Mace, G. M., Roberts, S. C. & Macdonald, D. W. (1999). Energetic constraints on the diet of terrestrial carnivores. Nature 402(6759): 286288.Google Scholar
Choudhury, A. U. (2001). Devastating flood in Kaziranga National Park. Tiger Paper 28(3): 2426.Google Scholar
Choudhury, A. U. (2011). Records of Sloth Bear and Malayan Sun Bear in North East India. Final report to International Association for Bear Research & Management (IBA). The Rhino Foundation for Nature in NE India, Guwahati, Assam, India.Google Scholar
Collins, N. M. (1980). The distribution of soil macrofauna on the west ridge of Gunung (Mount) Mulu, Sarawak. Oecologia 44: 263275.Google Scholar
Christiansen, P. (2008). Feeding ecology and morphology of the upper canines in bears (Carnivora: Ursidae). Journal of Morphology 269(7): 896908.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Erdbrink, D. P. (1953). A review of fossil and recent bears of the Old World: with remarks on their phylogeny, based upon their dentition (Vol. 1). Deventer: Drukkerij Jan de De Lange.Google Scholar
Ferrar, P. (1982). Termites of a South African savanna. II. Densities and populations of smaller mounds, and seasonality of breeding. Oecologia 52(1): 133138.Google Scholar
Fredriksson, G. M. (2012). Effects of El Niño and large-scale forest fires on the ecology and conservation of Malayan sun bears (Helarctos malayanus) in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. Doctoral dissertation, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Fredriksson, G. M., Wich, S. A. & Trisno, . (2006). Frugivory in sun bears (Helarctos malayanus) is linked to El Niño-related fluctuations in fruiting phenology, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 89(3): 489508.Google Scholar
Futuyma, D. J. & Moreno, G. (1988). The evolution of ecological specialization. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 19(1): 207233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garshelis, D. L. (2004). Variation in ursid life histories: is there an outlier? In: Giant pandas: Biology and conservation (pp. 5373). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Garshelis, D. L., Joshi, A. R., Smith, J. L. D. & Rice, C. G. (1999) Conservation action plan for sloth bears. In: Servheen, C., Herrero, C. & Peyton, S., B. (Eds.), Bears: Status survey and conservation action plan (pp. 225240). Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK: IUCN/SSC Bear and Polar Bear Specialist Groups.Google Scholar
Garshelis, D. L., Dhariaya, N. A., Sharp, T. R., et al. (2015). Sloth bears at the northern edge of their range: status of the transboundary population linking northeastern India to Bhutan. Final Report to International Association for Bear Research and Management.Google Scholar
Holt, R. D. (2009). Bringing the Hutchinsonian niche into the 21st century: ecological and evolutionary perspectives. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106(Supplement 2): 19,65919,665.Google Scholar
Huygens, O. C., Miyashita, T., Dahle, B., et al. (2003). Diet and feeding habits of Asiatic black bears in the Northern Japanese Alps. Ursus 14(2): 236245.Google Scholar
Hwang, M. H., Garshelis, D. L. & Wang, Y. (2002). Diets of Asiatic black bears in Taiwan, with methodological and geographical comparisons. Ursus 13: 111125.Google Scholar
Joshi, A. R., Garshelis, D. L. & Smith, J. L. (1997). Seasonal and habitat-related diets of sloth bears in Nepal. Journal of Mammalogy 78(2): 584597.Google Scholar
Koike, S. (2010). Long-term trends in food habits of Asiatic black bears in the Misaka Mountains on the Pacific coast of central Japan. Mammalian Biology 75(1): 1728.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krause, J., Unger, T., Noçon, A., et al. (2008). Mitochondrial genomes reveal an explosive radiation of extinct and extant bears near the Miocene–Pliocene boundary. BMC Evolutionary Biology 8(1): 220, DOI:10.1186/1471-2148-8-220.Google Scholar
Linkie, M., Dinata, Y., Nugroho, A. & Haidir, I.A. (2007). Estimating occupancy of a data deficient mammalian species living in tropical rainforests: sun bears in the Kerinci Seblat region, Sumatra. Biological Conservation 137: 2027.Google Scholar
Louthan, A. M., Doak, D. F. & Angert, A. L. (2015). Where and when do species interactions set range limits? Trends in Ecology & Evolution 30(12): 780792.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mathisen, K. M. (2003). Effects of forest fires on termites (Isoptera) and availability of food for the sun bear (Ursus malayanus) in a dipterocarp forest of East Kalimantan, Indonesia. MSc thesis, Agriculture University of Norway.Google Scholar
Mattson, D. J., Herrero, S. & Merrill, T. (2005). Are black bears a factor in the restoration of North American grizzly bear populations? Ursus 16(1): 1131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miyagawa, S., Koyama, Y., Kokubo, M., et al. (2011). Indigenous utilization of termite mounds and their sustainability in a rice growing village of the central plain of Laos. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 7(1): 2429.Google Scholar
Ngoprasert, D., Steinmetz, R., Reed, D. H., Savini, T. & Gale, G. A. (2011). Influence of fruit on habitat selection of Asian bears in a tropical forest. The Journal of Wildlife Management 75(3): 588595.Google Scholar
Primack, R. B. & Corlett, R. (2005). Tropical rain forests: An ecological and biogeographical comparison. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, M. L. (1991). Habitat selection and population interactions: the search for mechanism. The American Naturalist 137: S5S28.Google Scholar
Sacco, T. & Van Valkenburgh, B. (2004). Ecomorphological indicators of feeding behaviour in the bears (Carnivora: Ursidae). Journal of Zoology 263(1): 4154.Google Scholar
Seidensticker, J., Yoganand, K. & Johnsingh, A. J. T. (2011). Sloth bears living in seasonally dry tropical and moist broadleaf forests and their conservation. In: McShea, W. J., Davies, S. J. & Bhumpakphan, N. (Eds.), Dry forests of Asia: Conservation and ecology (pp. 217236). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Sethy, J. & Chauhan, N. P. S. (2018). Dietary preference of Malayan sun bear Helarctos malayanus in Namdapha Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Wildlife Biology 2018(1): wlb.00351.Google Scholar
Steinmetz, R. (2011). Ecology and distribution of sympatric Asiatic black bears and sun bears in the tropical dry forest ecosystem of Southeast Asia. In: McShea, W. J., Davies, S. J. & Bhumpakphan, N. (Eds.), Dry forests of Asia: Conservation and ecology (pp. 249274). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Steinmetz, R., Garshelis, D. L., Chutipong, W. & Seuaturien, N. (2011). The shared preference niche of sympatric Asiatic black bears and sun bears in a tropical forest mosaic. PLoS One 6(1): e14509.Google Scholar
Steinmetz, R., Garshelis, D. L., Chutipong, W. & Seuaturien, N. (2013). Foraging ecology and coexistence of Asiatic black bears and sun bears in a seasonal tropical forest in Southeast Asia. Journal of Mammalogy 94(1): 118.Google Scholar
Talukdar, N. R. & Choudhury, P. (2017). Conserving wildlife wealth of Patharia Hills Reserve Forest, Assam, India: a critical analysis. Global Ecology and Conservation 10: 126138.Google Scholar
Tougard, C. (2001). Biogeography and migration routes of large mammal faunas in South-East Asia during the Late Middle Pleistocene: focus on the fossil and extant faunas from Thailand. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 168(3–4): 337358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tumbelaka, L. & Fredriksson, G. M. (2006). The status of sun bears in Indonesia. In: Understanding Asian bears to secure their future (pp. 7378). Ibaraki: Japan Bear Network.Google Scholar
Wagner, J., Čermák, S. & Horáček, I. (2011). The presence of Ursus ex gr. minimus-thibetanus in the Late Villányian and its position among the Pliocene and Pleistocene black bears in Europe. Quaternaire 4: 3958.Google Scholar
Wiens, J. A. (1993). Fat times, lean times and competition among predators. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 8(10): 348349.Google Scholar
Wiens, J. J. (2011). The niche, biogeography and species interactions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366(1576): 23362350.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wong, S. T., Servheen, C. W. & Ambu, L. (2002). Food habits of Malayan sun bears in lowland tropical forests of Borneo. Ursus 13: 127136.Google Scholar
Wong, S. T., Servheen, C., Ambu, L. & Norhayati, A. (2005). Impacts of fruit production cycles on Malayan sun bears and bearded pigs in lowland tropical forest of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Journal of Tropical Ecology 21(6): 627639.Google Scholar
Woodburne, M. O. (2004). Global events and the North American mammalian biochronology. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Woodruff, D. S. (2003). Neogene marine transgressions, palaeogeography and biogeographic transitions on the Thai–Malay Peninsula. Journal of Biogeography 30(4): 551567.Google Scholar
Wu, J., Kohno, N., Mano, S., et al. (2015). Phylogeographic and demographic analysis of the Asian Black Bear (Ursus thibetanus) based on mitochondrial DNA. PLoS One 10(9): e0136398.Google Scholar
Yadav, S. K., Lamichhane, B. R., Subedi, N., et al. (2017). Himalayan black bear discovered in Babai Valley of Bardia National Park, Nepal, co-occurring with sloth bears. International Bear News 26(3): 2325.Google Scholar
Yamazaki, K., Kozakai, C., Koike, S., et al. (2012). Myrmecophagy of Japanese black bears in the grasslands of the Ashio area, Nikko National Park, Japan. Ursus 23(1): 5265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zachos, J., Pagani, M., Sloan, L., Thomas, E. & Billups, K. (2001). Trends, rhythms, and aberrations in global climate 65 Ma to present. Science 292: 686693.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×