Research overview: stepping-stone habitat for dispersing tigers

In India and Southeast Asia, tigers move between protected areas through a matrix of forest fragments, plantations, and human settlements, and this overview examines the role of stepping-stone habitats, small patches that dispersers use to rest and traverse otherwise hostile terrain. Telemetry and genetic studies show that even modest forest remnants, riparian strips, and ridgelines can enable dispersal that maintains gene flow among reserves, while their loss isolates populations. The overview discusses how identifying and protecting these stepping-stones complements protecting large core reserves, and how dispersing tigers navigate roads, villages, and agriculture at high risk. Maintaining stepping-stone connectivity is central to managing tigers as a metapopulation across a crowded landscape where continuous corridors are often impossible to preserve. Movement data guide where these patches matter most.