Tiger Habitat Types: Classification of Vegetation

Pornkamol Jornburom and Katie Purdham

Kwanchai WaitanyakanWCS Thailand Program

Outline

Background Objectives Data Used Method• Classification• Tiger Occupancy Survey

ResultsConclusion

FOREST RESOURCES

• Forest cover 28% of land area• Protected area system 15% of land area

- National parks (102); wildlife sanctuaries (44)•National Forest & Forest plantations ~10%

• Land Area 513,000 km2 (198,000 mi2) (larger than California but less than Texas)

GENERAL INFOMATION

• Current population = 64 million

Area Background

Huai Kha Khaeng WS.• Area 2,780 sq.km• The major vegetation types

- Tropical evergreen forest

- Mixed deciduous forest • Elevations ranged from 200-1,560

msl.• 20 Park ranger stations • > 30 villages located around

Area Background

• Classify vegetation type in the HKK area• Analyze correlations between tiger occupancy

and vegetation types • Look into other possible explanations for tiger

occupancy (elevation, presence of streams, etc.)

Project Goals

• Landsat 5 (NDVI)– April/May 2011

• Landsat 5 (Classification)– 2004 Dry Season

• Tiger Occupancy Data– November, 2010- May, 2011

• Other Spatial Data (DEM, streams, villages)– Department of National Park, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation

Data

Image classification

Methods

• NDVI–Mosaic

• Unsupervised Classification– Preprocessed – K means, 9 classes, 15 iterations, convergence

threshold of .95

NDVI

Results Unsupervised Classification

Tiger occupancy surveyMap Survey Index of WEFCOM

Methods

Tiger occupancy survey

Methods

The proportion of sites occupied by species the  or 

“the probability that a site within a groups of sites is occupied” incorporated with detection probability.

- Occupancy 

  - Detection  probability • Sign-based survey• Large landscape

Replicate scale Probability of habitat use

12

3

4 5

6

To investigate the tiger’s habitat-use within certain land cover types, each1-km transect was treated as the ‘site’ while the 100-meter segments represented ‘replicates.

Methods

When a sign of tigers is found at one replicate, successive replicates will have a much higher probability of the tigers being present than those farther away.

A single season custom spatial correlation model

Methods

• Forest type• NDVI• Elevation• Streams• Village• Ranger Station• Substrate

Ecological variables

Variable B SE Exp(B)Probability of Occupancy -0.323 6.570 0.724

-1.434 6.567 0.238-0.082 6.587 0.921

Large prey 0.055 0.060 1.057Medium prey 0.087 0.066 1.091Small prey -0.098 0.071 0.906NDVI 0.256 0.095 1.292DEM 0.152 0.110 1.164Village 0.081 0.084 1.084Stream -0.150 0.077 0.860Distance form Ranger Station -0.048 0.075 0.953Forest type: Evergreen Forest -0.292 6.567 0.075Forest type: Hill evergreen Forest -0.788 6.570 0.455Forest type: Mixed deciduous Forest -0.211 6.566 0.810Forest type: Dry dipterocarp Forest -0.048 6.567 0.954Forest type: Bamboo Forest -0.498 6.572 0.608Detection probability -0.216 38.457 0.805Substrate: Soft soil 0.153 38.460 1.166Substrate: Leaf Litter -0.717 38.455 0.488Substrate: Hard soil 0.347 38.459 1.415

Results

a is defined as the probability that tiger signs are present on a spatial replicate given that spatial replicateb, is defined as the probability that tiger signs are present on the spatial replicate given that spatial replicate is occupied and tiger sign was present on the previous spatial replicate

Estimates of B coefficient estimates for the logit link function

Accuracy AssessmentUnsupervised classification

Field Data

Dry evergreen

forest

Hill evergreen forest

Mixed deciduous forest

Dry dipterocarp

forest

Bamboo forest

Total

Dry evergreen forest 55 0 55 2 0 112

Hill evergreen forest 54 0 19 2 0 75

Mixed deciduous forest 30 0 226 20 0 276

Dry dipterocarp forest 3 0 92 7 0 102

Bamboo forest 0 0 23 2 0 25

Total 142 0 415 33 0 590

Dry evergreen forest Hill evergreen forest Mixed deciduous forest Dry dipterocarp forest Bamboo forest

Discussion and Future Projects

• Tiger Occupancy Data• Landsat 5• More and Better Data• Habitat Suitability Map

Discussion and Future Projects

Khao Nang Ram Wildlife Research Station, Thailand