Dry season forage selection by Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) in a fragmented landscape, northern West Bengal

Abstract

The Asian elephant is a wide-ranging species with just 51% of its range across Asia covered by forest land. Hence, it is imperative to plan conservation action in the other half comprising of multiuse landscapes. With food being an important resource determining elephant use and movement, understanding their forage selection in a heterogeneous landscape can help us prioritise allocation of limited conservation resources. I studied forage selection by Asian elephants during December 2019 to June 2020 in a tea-estate-agriculture-forest mosaic in northern West Bengal, a landscape which typifies land-use mosaics used by elephants across India. Asian elephants in the landscape consumed 132 plant species, of which 21 species constituted 85.3% of the total feeding signs recorded, while non-reproductive plant parts dominated the diet. The mean (±SE) feeding frequency was found to be highest in villages [50.15 (±22.85)] followed by forests [40.51 (±9.42)], semi-open forests [12.14 (±9.42)], tea estates [5.79 (±1.95)] and open forests [3.31(±1.44)]. However, the high variance in village indicates that elephants use villages for movement and forages occasionally. Food grain from household was consumed rarely (0.25%). Overall, they used dicots (52.73%) more than monocots (47.27%) and browse (65.23%) more than herb (34.77%). Elephants consumed more monocots in forests and tea estates whereas in semi-open forests, open forests and villages they consumed more dicots. The availability of monocots was lesser than dicots in all these land use and land cover types. In forest, they consumed more herbs, whereas browse was consumed more in all other land use and land cover types.