02253nas a2200205   4500000000100000000000100001008004100002260003300043100001600076700001800092700001800110700002600128700001700154700002500171245004100196856004800237300000900285520173100294020002202025       2021                            d  c01/2021bSpringeraSingapore1 aSamba Kumar1 aUllas Karanth1 aJames Nichols1 aSrinivas Vaidyanathan1 aBeth Gardner1 aJagdish Krishnaswamy00aIntroduction: The Conservation Issue  uhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6934-0_1  a1-333 a1. Large ungulates are major ecological drivers shaping the structure and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. However, they are also a highly vulnerable group of mammals because of increasing human impacts in the form of hunting, habitat loss and degradation. 2. In view of the general decline of wild ungulates worldwide, and more specifically in tropical forests, there is an urgent need for rigorous assessments of population statuses of tropical forest ungulate species, as well as evaluations of drivers of their declines in order to make timely and informed conservation decisions. 3. In this monograph, we provide an overarching modeling framework and develop a set of specific methods required for rigorous analyses of ungulate populations. We also demonstrate their practical application by investigating spatial variation in ungulate abundance patterns and their key determinants in the case of five large, sympatric tropical forest ungulates in southwestern India. 4. This chapter provides the conservation context in which such understanding of ungulate-habitat relationships is necessary for the conduct of informed management. We also elaborate on specific environmental, logistical and statistical challenges involved in our macro-ecological field investigation. 5. The detailed prior information on the study landscape and a synthesis of current knowledge on biology and conservation issues affecting the study species are used for the formulation of a priori hypotheses about the drivers of wild ungulate abundance patterns in tropical forest systems. These hypotheses are tested by appropriately designed confrontations of plausible models against survey data in the subsequent chapters of this monograph.  a978-981-15-6934-0