Tigers need cover: multi-scale occupancy study of the big cat in Sumatran forest and plantation landscapes

Sunarto and colleagues used multi-scale occupancy modeling, informed by camera-trap and field detections, to investigate how Sumatran tigers respond to forest cover and human-modified landscapes including plantations. Accounting for imperfect detection, they found that tigers strongly favor areas with natural forest cover and avoid heavily converted habitats, with occupancy patterns operating at multiple spatial scales. The study quantified the conservation cost of deforestation and oil-palm and acacia expansion for a critically endangered tiger subspecies, providing evidence to guide land-use planning. By linking occupancy to habitat structure across scales, it demonstrated the power of detection-corrected distribution modeling for conservation. The paper is widely cited in Sumatran tiger conservation and in landscape-scale felid occupancy research.