African large carnivores in space and time: insights from camera‐traps on the fine‐scale spatio‐temporal dynamics of lions, spotted hyaenas and leopards

Coexistence of sympatric large carnivores is common in many ecosystems. On the one hand, the potential for competitive interactions, from kleptoparasitism to intraguild predation, is high, so species are expected to avoid each other. On the other hand, positive interactions, such as scavenging opportunities, also exist and may explain the attraction of some carnivores to others. In this study, we assess the patterns of spatio‐temporal co‐occurrence at different scales of the three most common large carnivores of African savannas: the spotted hyaena Crocuta crocuta , the African lion Panthera leo and the leopard Panthera pardus . We use data from a camera‐trapping survey (285 stations; 14 316 camera trap days; 2446 independent detection pictures) covering the ~ 15 000 km² of Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, a key ecosystem of the world's largest trans‐frontier conservation area (Kavango–Zambezi). After corroborating the important overlap in the species diel activity pattern and their use of the same areas of the landscape, we further explore their finer spatio‐temporal co‐occurrence patterns. Time‐to‐event analyses suggest that hyaenas tend to use areas previously used by lions and leopards closely in time (in the 2 h following the use of the area by the other two species) but also during consecutive nights. We show that lion fine‐scale spatio‐temporal use is not affected by hyaenas, and that lions and leopards use the same areas of the landscapes but not close in time. We finally discuss the potential mechanisms (kleptoparasitism, scavenging opportunities, interference competition and indirect interactions through prey catchability) that can underlie the patterns observed, but caution against quick inference from patterns to mechanisms, as illustrated with our results on hyaenas, for which the time‐to‐event analyses supported the ‘follower hypothesis' but the picture inspection showed that hyaenas were going in the same direction as the other carnivore in only 42.4% of the cases.