Loners Have It: Insights on Breeding and Non-Breeding Individuals of Sloth Bears in Central India

Population persistence is critically dependent on the reproductive biology of organisms, which often remains poorly understood, especially for solitary and elusive carnivores. Exhibiting intraspecific reproductive state segregation, as a part of breeding biology, indicates avoiding infanticides and/or reducing resource competition. Sloth bear (Melursus ursinus) is the most common ursid in the Indian Subcontinent, yet knowledge of their breeding biology concerning intraspecific interaction is scanty. We assessed the occupancy and temporal activity of sloth bears for two states related to their breeding, that is, lone adults and females with offspring, aiming to understand the spatio-temporal segregation by using data obtained from camera trap surveys (2018-2021) in Panna Tiger Reserve, central India. Dynamic and single-season multistate occupancy models indicated spatial segregation between females with offspring and lone adults, as the former occupied hotter, rugged terrains, while lone adults preferred mixed forests and cooler habitats. However, during summer, seasonal forage availability perhaps contributed to less (but existing) spatial avoidance shown by females with offspring. We found fine-scale temporal segregation between the two states, regardless of the seasons. Such spatio-temporal interactions may be driven by the protection of cubs from infanticide by conspecifics or additively with the reduction in foraging competition, which probably came with a physiological cost to the females with offspring. Our study is among the first to quantitatively compare indicators of occupancy between lone adults and females with offspring, as a significant part of sloth bears' breeding biology. Demonstrating such spatio-temporal segregation patterns in reproductive states represents a promising approach to advancing our ecological understanding of population structure and fitness outcomes in sloth bears.