Art by Dahlia Kordit
In the biodiverse foothills and cloud forests of Chiapas, Mexico, a story of adaptations to human influence is unfolding—not just among wildlife, but also in how conservationists approach their work. In a recent study, Germar González (YSE ʼ24), in collaboration with Nyeema Harris at the Yale School of Environment, uncovered fascinating patterns in how carnivores adjust their behavior based on human influence, even within protected zones. The study illuminates the complicated nature of carnivore-human interaction and how our human influences can dramatically alter the daily activity patterns of nearby carnivore populations.
Conserving Coexistence
For González, the idea of conservation extends beyond solely ecological data. “I had studied conservation in college, but it was a very science‐focused curriculum that sometimes left out the social perspective,” González said. His keen interest in the social implications of ecology led González to the Applied Wildlife Ecology Lab at Yale, where his research with Harris embraced both ecological and societal dimensions of conservation.
The research group’s approach focuses on addressing the increasingly prominent issue of human-wildlife coexistence. For González and his team, this isn’t just about managing occasional wildlife encounters in urban areas; it’s about rethinking how humans and wildlife can live together in shared spaces. As cities grow, as humans develop land, and as climate change reshapes ecosystems, the boundaries between human and wildlife habitats are becoming increasingly porous—and in some cases, they seem to overlap entirely.
In places like the montane cloud forests of El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas, Mexico, these overlaps are shaped by different land-use designations. These mark clear gradients of human activity, each presenting unique implications for wildlife. Researchers in the Applied Wildlife Ecology Lab recognize that most ecosystems today are already influenced by people, and that traditional conservation models—focused on isolating nature from human use—aren’t always sufficient. By studying how animals shift their behavior in response to varied levels of human presence, the team hopes to understand how we can better manage these shared landscapes in the long-term. “There’s going to be more humans coming into natural landscapes and vice versa […] we’re going to have wildlife coming into people’s landscapes,” González said. “So, the question becomes how we can achieve coexistence?”
Blurred Boundaries
El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve is categorized into three distinct zones: core areas with little to no human activity, buffer zones where human use is allowed but regulated, and adjacent private lands often used for small-scale farming. Each zone represents a distinct level of human activity, enabling researchers to observe how wildlife behavior varies in response to the type of landscape and the degree of human presence. “Our research was designed to measure how different management zones affect carnivore behavior,” González explained.
To explore these dynamics, the researchers set up thirty-three motion-activated camera traps throughout the reserve. These cameras operated continuously for several weeks, capturing thousands of images whenever animals passed by. This allowed the team to monitor fourteen unique carnivore species within the reserve, noting differential behavior patterns based on their presence in zones, changes in activity overlap relative to known predators and prey, and competition between species.
The results were surprising: researchers witnessed the greatest changes in carnivore activity not in the areas with the highest human activity, the private land, but rather in the intermediate buffer zones. Margays—a medium-sized wild cat species—shifted from their normal activity patterns to nocturnal behavior in buffer zones. Gray foxes showed similarly marked differences in their activity across different management zones. Such findings appear to challenge what is commonly known as the “human shield hypothesis,” which posits that human presence may protect smaller predators from larger ones by deterring the latter. “It seems that even in human-dominated buffer areas, these smaller mesocarnivores are forced to adjust their activity,” González said.
Conducting research in remote cloud forests came with considerable difficulties. According to González, planning camera placements from maps was often unreliable due to unpredictable on-the-ground conditions such as steep terrain and dense vegetation. To resolve these issues, the team decided to group cameras in circular clusters to best capture the landscape, rather than simply placing cameras in a line. The researchers also used several statistical methods—including kernel density estimation and permutation-based analyses—to more accurately assess shifts in carnivore activity patterns and measure temporal overlap, which refers to the degree to which different species are active during the same periods of the day.
This approach enabled the researchers to not just detect behavioral changes in single animals, but also observe changes in the broader web of interactions among species. “The apparent overlap of activity in the buffer zones was very high for our established predator-prey pairs, which we thought was really unexpected and points to more complex interactions caused by human influences,” González said.
Community Connections
For González, successfully engaging local communities wasn’t an afterthought, but rather an essential component of the research process. “We presented at various town halls and went to villages to explain our work. We even printed flyers in Spanish to let people know what we were doing,” he said. This outreach helped build trust with local residents whose daily lives are directly involved with the studied wildlife, and reflected González’s belief that effective conservation must incorporate community perspectives from the very beginning.
González also offered advice to aspiring ecologists, encouraging a holistic approach to education. “Ecology is a very huge field. I would recommend being ready to learn more about other fields like social sciences, politics, and even economics,” he said. Essentially, conservation in our modern era requires interdisciplinary skills paired with versatility in unknown circumstances. “It’s not just about knowing the animals. It’s about understanding why conflicts happen and how we can collaborate with communities to resolve them,” González said.
The study doesn’t just add to academic discourse—it upends long-held beliefs about how we define, design, and manage protected areas. González cautioned that zoning labels like “buffer zones” can give a false sense of protection, as the team’s findings showed high levels of human impact in these areas despite their intended purpose. Such a disconnect between how conservation zones are planned and on-the-ground reality suggests that traditional management strategies may need to be reconsidered.
As Mexico and other nations have agreed to enhance conservation efforts—like the international 30×30 initiative, which aims to protect thirty percent of land and ocean by 2030—González’s data is integral for ecologists and policymakers alike in navigating the delicate nature of wildlife conservation. “Our findings emphasize that how we devise preservation management must be flexible and include the voices of local communities,” González said.
Future Directions
While the current research provides valuable insights, González acknowledges the necessity of more detailed research. Future research would benefit from a finer-scale study with more cameras monitored over a longer time frame, incorporating additional variables such as direct measures of human activity, vegetation cover, and prey availability. Such research could clarify the causal factors behind the observed behavioral shifts, and it might also provide practical guidance for those who manage human-wildlife interactions in shared landscapes.
As González explained, “Our findings can aid in assessing protected area efficacy and understanding carnivore response to anthropogenic pressures in shared landscapes.” But the researchers’ data is worth much more than just journal articles—it serves as a crucial link between academic research and the real-world challenges of conservation. As the boundaries between natural habitats and human settlements grow increasingly blurred, the team’s approach incorporating both biological and societal context proves promising for genuine coexistence. By combining stringent scientific methods with meaningful engagement with communities, the team’s work demonstrates that conservation can honor both ecological imperatives and human needs—a balance that will be essential for protecting biodiversity in quite the dynamic world.