Carnivore species detected during the camera trap survey in Mole National Park, Ghana, and estimated mean occurrence (<i>ψ</i>) and detection (<i>p</i>) probabilities and covariate effects on occurrence.

<p>The proportion of 224 sampling sites at which carnivore species were detected reflects observation data, whereas <i>ψ</i> and <i>p</i> are model-averaged estimates from the multi-species hierarchical mixture model (means and standard deviations from posterior probability distributions for species-specific parameters). Site covariates of occurrence are shown for cases where the posterior probability distribution from the full model for the corresponding species-specific coefficient indicated a potential effect (i.e., posterior mass not concentrated at 0; distributions are given in Appendix S3).</p>a<p>Scientific names in Table S1.</p>b<p>Direction of effect indicated as either positive (+) or negative (−) association of species occurrence probability with the particular covariate. For the different prey biomass covariates, only the strongest effect is indicated.</p

Posterior probability summaries of hyper-parameters for mean community-level effects of hypothesized site covariates on carnivore occurrence (<i>α</i> and <i>δ</i> coefficients) and detection (<i>β</i> coefficients).

<p>Posterior mean, standard deviation (SD) and 95% credible interval (CI) were estimated from the full model, while the corresponding inclusion probability from model selection using a mixture model is also shown (representing the posterior probability of that covariate effect being included in the best model). Posterior distributions for these hyper-parameters as well as species-level parameters are given in Appendix S3.</p>*<p>The two prey indices derived from patrol data were not included in the final mixture model as they were considered redundant to (but less informative than) the comparable short-term prey indices derived from camera trap data (based on results of the full model and a preliminary mixture model).</p

Model-predicted carnivore responses to the three site covariates included in the best occurrence model.

<p>Predicted marginal probabilities of carnivore occurrence relative to variation in the index of small prey biomass, distance from riverine forest, and distance from park edge (all values standardized). Species are: African civet (solid black), caracal (dashed red), Gambian mongoose (dotted green), large-spotted genet (dot-dash blue), leopard (dashed light blue), marsh mongoose (dot-dash purple), side-striped jackal (solid yellow), spotted hyena (dashed grey), white-tailed mongoose (dotted black; scientific names and details of model selection are given in the text).</p

Posterior model probabilities for the top 11 models that had 90% of the posterior support across all candidate models for community-level effects on carnivore occurrence (<i>ψ</i>) and detection (<i>p</i>), as estimated from the mixture modeling approach to model selection (53 additional models appeared in the posterior sample but all with probabilities <0.01).

<p>Posterior model probabilities for the top 11 models that had 90% of the posterior support across all candidate models for community-level effects on carnivore occurrence (<i>ψ</i>) and detection (<i>p</i>), as estimated from the mixture modeling approach to model selection (53 additional models appeared in the posterior sample but all with probabilities <0.01).</p

Camera-trap locations

<p>(<b>n = 224</b>) <b>and indices of patrol effort, hunting activity, habitat, and prey biomass in Mole National Park, Ghana.</b> (A) Index of law enforcement patrol effort (i.e., “protection”) calculated as the density of patrol pathways covered between Oct. 2006 and May 2008 (also showing the location of villages within 10 km of the park boundary); (B) NDVI, the normalized difference vegetation index (from MODIS/Terra sensor) summed over the study period (i.e., integrated NDVI, Oct. 2006 – Jan. 2009); (C) Index of illegal hunting activity detected by law enforcement patrols (observations per unit patrol effort); (D) Patrol-based, multi-season index of biomass for prey species weighing less than 18 kg (standardized by patrol effort). No data were obtained in the white areas within the park boundary.</p

Regional distribution of the protected areas (PAs) in tropical Africa considered in the analyses.

<p>The regions are coloured in different grey scale colours. Light grey represents West Africa, including 54 protected areas; medium grey represents Central Africa, including 31 protected areas; dark grey represents East Africa, including 14 protected areas. On the left-side bottom corner a MODIS NDVI image of Africa, with a red quadrant highlighting the tropical area considered in the study.</p

Proportion of protected areas with conservation activities between 1990 and 1999 across different African regions.

<p>The number of protected areas with available information on presence and absence of any conservation activity (research, tourism and law enforcement guards) over the considered period were in total 105.</p

Influence of tourism activities and PA size on threat level in 83 PAs.

<p>In bold are highlighted significant values (p <i><0.05</i>). See abbreviations in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0114154#pone-0114154-t002" target="_blank">Tab 2</a>. AIC, Akaike's Information Criterion; AICw, Akaike Information Criterion weight; Rank, model rank from the smallest to the largest AIC value; k, number of variables including the intercept.</p><p>Influence of tourism activities and PA size on threat level in 83 PAs.</p

Influence of law enforcement activities and PA size on threat levels in 90 PAs.

<p>In bold are highlighted significant values (p <i><0.05</i>). See abbreviations in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0114154#pone-0114154-t002" target="_blank">Tab 2</a>. AIC, Akaike's Information Criterion; AICw, Akaike Information Criterion weight; Rank, model rank from the smallest to the largest AIC value; k, number of variables including the intercept.</p><p>Influence of law enforcement activities and PA size on threat levels in 90 PAs.</p

Threats impact levels to 98 tropical African protected areas at a continental and regional scale.

<p>Clockwise from top: Africa (a), Central Africa (b), East Africa (c) and West Africa (d).</p