{"id":83284,"date":"2021-02-17T15:43:48","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T10:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=83284"},"modified":"2021-03-01T13:19:01","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T07:49:01","slug":"spatial-mark-resightsmr-model-to-estimate-leopard-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/spatial-mark-resightsmr-model-to-estimate-leopard-population\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Spatial Mark-Resight'(SMR) model to estimate Leopard population"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>What is the news?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Scientists from three organizations namely Aaranyak, Panthera, and WWF-India have developed a model called &#8216;Spatial Mark-Resight'(SMR). It will precisely estimate the population size of leopards.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why &#8216;Spatial Mark-Resight'(SMR) model developed?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Leopards can be identified like tigers with the help of their unique shape and size of the rosettes (black circular marks). It is present across their body coat.<\/li>\n<li>However, like many other wildlife species, leopards also exhibit <strong>phenotypic polymorphism<\/strong> (body colour variation determined by gene).<\/li>\n<li>Leopards are either rosettes (having black circular marks) or melanistic (full black, commonly called black leopard or Black Panther).<\/li>\n<li>The melanism presents a unique challenge in estimating and monitoring the leopard population. Natural marks (rosettes in case of leopard) are absent on these Leopards.<\/li>\n<li>This problem is more in the tropical and subtropical moist forests of south and south-east Asia. Here the frequency of melanistic leopards is high and leopards also face the greatest threat.<\/li>\n<li>Hence, the SMR model was developed. It will estimate the leopard population in areas having a mix of the rosette and melanistic individuals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How Spatial-Mark-Resight (SMR) model used?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The team used the three years of camera trapping data between 2017 and 2019. Info obtained from Manas National Park(Assam).<\/li>\n<li>The camera trapping data used to identify Rosette Leopards individually.\u00a0 It also prepared the capture history (GPS locations, the individual ID of each unique photo-capture of leopard) information.<\/li>\n<li>They then borrowed the capture history information of the rosette leopards and applied the information to the melanistic leopards. It provided an estimate pf the entire population size of leopards.<\/li>\n<li>They found that the population density of leopards in Manas is 3.37 per 100 sq km. About 22.6% of images of the leopards were of the melanistic kind.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Significance of the model:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The model can help assess the population of leopards across a great part of the species range from where population estimates are scant.<\/li>\n<li>This model can also be widely applied for other species that exhibit colour variation in nature.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/status-of-leopards-in-india-2018-report\/\"><strong>Click Here to read about Leopard<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/Home\/MShareArticle?OrgId=GNJ89L7IK.1&amp;imageview=0\"><strong>The Hindu<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the news? Scientists from three organizations namely Aaranyak, Panthera, and WWF-India have developed a model called &#8216;Spatial Mark-Resight'(SMR). It will precisely estimate the population size of leopards. Why &#8216;Spatial Mark-Resight'(SMR) model developed? Leopards can be identified like tigers with the help of their unique shape and size of the rosettes (black circular marks).&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/spatial-mark-resightsmr-model-to-estimate-leopard-population\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8216;Spatial Mark-Resight'(SMR) model to estimate Leopard population<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,1351,1310,4182,9],"tags":[1316],"class_list":["post-83284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-daily-news","category-daily-news-updates","category-environment","category-public","tag-env_2","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1700518243},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}