DOI: 10.5061/dryad.9kd51c5qb
title: Spatial and temporal niche overlap of aardwolves and aardvarks in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

description: Species interactions can influence species distributions, but mechanisms
 mitigating competition or facilitating positive interactions between
 ecologically similar species are often poorly understood. Aardwolves
 (Proteles cristata) and aardvarks (Orycteropus afer) are nocturnal,
 insectivorous mammals that co-occur in eastern and southern Africa, and
 knowledge of these species is largely limited to their nutritional
 biology. We used aardwolf and aardvark detections from 106 remote cameras
 during 2016–2018 to assess their spatial and temporal niche overlap in the
 grasslands of Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. Using a multispecies
 occupancy model, we identified a positive interaction between occupancy
 probabilities for aardwolves and aardvarks. Slope, proportion of
 grassland, and termite mound density did not affect occupancy
 probabilities of either species. Probability of aardwolf, but not
 aardvark, occupancy increased with distance to permanent water sources,
 which may relate to predation risk avoidance. Diel activity overlap
 between aardwolves and aardvarks was high during wet and dry seasons, with
 both species being largely nocturnal. Aardwolves and aardvarks have an
 important ecological role as termite consumers, and aardvarks are
 suggested to be ecosystem engineers. Our results contribute to a better
 understanding of the spatial and temporal niche of insectivores like
 aardwolves and aardvarks, suggesting high spatial and temporal niche
 overlap in which commensalism occur, whereby aardwolves benefit from
 aardvark presence through increased food accessibility.
description: We collected data during
 August 2016–June 2018 using 106 remote cameras (Stealth Cam, model N45NG;
 Irving, Texas, USA). Nearest distance between cameras was 3,000 m for 63
 cameras and 4,225 m for 43 cameras (Figure 1). We attached cameras to
 metal stakes 50-cm above ground and cleared vegetation in front of
 cameras. We programmed cameras to record 3-image bursts at each detection
 with a 30-second delay and inspected each about every 6 weeks. Because of
 staggered camera installations, we extracted data for a period of 70
 consecutive days from each camera (hereafter a “camera-period”) during 26
 August 2016–1 January 2018, and a second 70-day camera-period for 77
 cameras during 22 January 2017–30 June 2018. Overlap between the two
 periods of data collection occurred due to staggered camera installation.
 Most (95%) data were obtained during September 2016–February 2018. Each
 70-day camera-period was associated with a season (wet season,
 November-May; dry season, June-October). If a camera-period overlapped two
 seasons, we split the data by season into two separate, shorter
 camera-periods each entirely with one season.
description: # Spatial and temporal niche overlap of aardwolves and aardvarks in
 Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9kd51c5qb](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9kd51c5qb) This dataset contains the raw camera trap data and site covariate data needed to run the multispecies occupancy model in R, by use of the *Unmarked* package. This consists of binary data on aardwolf and aardvark presence, split by camera-period, the site covariates of season, distance to water, slope, elevation, proportion of grassland cover, number of termite mounds, and number of trees present at the site. It also contains the R script used to run the analysis. Secondly, the dataset contains the raw camera data and the script needed to run the diel activity analysis used to analyze temporal niche overlap btween the species, by use of the *Overlap* package in R. This consists of camera data on aardwolf and aardvark presence at camera sites, associated with specific dates and times, and the number of animals present. It also contains the R script used to run the analysis. ## Description of the data and file structure **FILES FOR THE MULTISPECIES OCCUPANCY ANALYSIS** **-sitecovs.csv** contains the following columns, in this exact order: * Camera site ID ('ID') * Longitude ('long', in WGS84) * Latitude ('lat', in WGS84) * Distance to water - continuous covariate in meters ('waterdist') * Slope - continuous covariate in angular units ('slope') * Elevation - continuous covariate in meters, *not included in final model* ('elev') * Proportion of grassland cover - continuous covariate ranging 0–100 ('grass') * Number of termite mounds - continuous covariate with termite mounds as unit ('mounds') * Season - categorical covariate with factors Dry (June–October) / Wet (November–May) ('season') * Number of trees present at site - continuous covariate with trees as unit ('trees') **-vark\_2s.csv and wolf\_2s.csv** contain presence/absence data for aardvarks and aardwolves, respectively: The first column is the camera site ID, formatted "xxx.x" whereby the characters before the dot indicate the actual camera ID, the number after the dot indicates a specific camera-period at a pseudo-site, as we split camera data into multiple camera-periods using a stacking approach. The other columns range d1–d70, each representing one out of 70 days of data collection per camera-period, with three responses 0 = absent, 1=present, NA= no data collection -**occupancymodel.R** is an annotated R-script to guide replication of the analysis using the datasets above. Packages required to run the analysis are mentioned at the beginning of the script. **FILES FOR THE DIEL ACTIVITY ANALYSIS** **-vark\_obs.csv and wolf\_obs.csv** contain presence/absence data for aardvarks and aardwolves, respectively: The first column is the camera site ID where the presence was recorded. The next columns are, in order: * The species recorded (species) * Number of individuals of this species (number) * The date of observation (date) * The time of observation (time) * Date and time pasted (datetime) -**dielanalysis.R** is an annotated R-script to guide replication of the analysis using the datasets above. Packages required to run the analysis are mentioned at the beginning of the script. ## Sharing/Access information Site covariate data was derived from the following sources: * Buchorn, M., Smets, B., Bertels, L., De Roo, B., Lesiv, M., Tsendbazar, N. E., Herold, M., Fritz, S. (2020). Copernicus global land service: land cover 100m: collection 3, epoch 2017. https://doi.10.5281/zenodo.3518036 * Maliti, H., & von Hagen, C., Frankfurt Zoological Society, Tanzania National Parks Authority & Hopcraft, J. G. C. (2008). Serengeti Park rivers. Available at: https://serengetidata.weebly.com/rivers-and-lakes.html * NASA, METI, AIST, Japan Space Systems & U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2018). ASTER global digital elevation model V003. Distributed by NASA EOSDIS Land Processes DAAC. https://doi.org/10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003 ## Code/Software All code is annotated to aid informed replication. The R packages needed to run the analyses are found at the beginning of each R script.