Anthropogenic landscape change is a leading driver of biodiversity loss. Preceding dramatic changes such as wildlife population declines and range shifts, more subtle responses may signal impending larger‐scale change. For example, disturbance‐induced shifts to species’ activity patterns may disrupt temporal niche partitioning along the 24‐h time axis, compromising community structure via altered competitive interactions. We investigated the impacts of human landscape disturbance on species’ activity patterns and temporal niche partitioning in the Canadian Rocky Mountain carnivore guild using camera trap images collected across two regions encompassing a wide gradient of human footprint. Applying kernel density estimation techniques, we tested for carnivore species’ activity shifts 1) between a low versus high disturbance landscape, and 2) in relation to site‐scale disturbance. To test our hypothesis that human disturbance impacts species’ temporal niche partitioning, we modelled activity overlap between co‐occurring carnivore species in relation to natural and anthropogenic landscape features, as well as carnivore community composition. Multiple carnivore species altered activity patterns between the low versus high disturbance landscapes and camera sites, but these shifts varied considerably among species. While wolves appeared to increase nocturnal activity in relation to disturbance, coyote activity consistently trended towards cathemerality and marten increased diurnal activity. Detecting effects of landscape disturbance on activity overlap between co‐occurring species was highly sensitive to site‐level detection sample sizes, and our results suggest altered temporal niche partitioning between marten and wolverine in relation to forest cover. This study indicates that mesocarnivores may respond differently and perhaps indirectly to anthropogenic disturbance compared to apex predators. Apex predator shifts to nocturnality may facilitate a ‘behavioural release’ in mesocarnivores. This may be a likely component of mesocarnivore population release, with important management implications for ecological communities on disturbed landscapes.

中文翻译：

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转向夜行性不是在受干扰的景观上食肉动物物种的普遍趋势

人为景观变化是生物多样性丧失的主要原因。在发生诸如野生生物种群减少和范围变化之类的戏剧性变化之前，更微妙的反应可能预示着即将发生的大规模变化。例如，由干扰引起的向物种活动模式的转变可能会破坏沿24小时轴的时间生态位分配，从而通过改变竞争相互作用而破坏群落结构。我们使用收集在两个覆盖人类足迹的广泛区域的相机陷阱图像，调查了人类景观扰动对加拿大落基山食肉动物行会物种活动模式和时空生态位分配的影响。应用核密度估计技术，我们测试了食肉动物物种在低扰动景观与高扰动景观之间的活动变化1），2）关于场地规模的干扰。为了检验我们的假设，即人类干扰影响物种的时间生态位分配，我们对与自然和人为景观特征以及食肉动物群落组成相关的共生食肉动物物种之间的活动重叠进行了建模。多种食肉动物物种在低扰动景观和高扰动景观与摄影场所之间改变了活动模式，但这些变化在物种之间变化很大。虽然狼似乎增加了与干扰有关的夜间活动，但土狼活动始终趋向于趋向于虚假，而貂则增加了昼夜活动。景观干扰对共生物种之间活动重叠的影响的检测对现场水平的检测样本量高度敏感，我们的研究结果表明，貂和金刚狼在时间上的生态位分配与森林覆盖率有关。这项研究表明，与食肉动物相比，中食肉动物对人为干扰的反应可能不同，也可能间接。Apex捕食者转向夜行性可能有助于中食动物的“行为释放”。这可能是食肉动物食肉动物释放的可能组成部分，对受干扰景观的生态群落具有重要的管理意义。