5 (3) cattle. Of the total, 33% of buffaloes and 43% of cattle were productive adult females in that year. Only four buffaloes and one cow per family were productive. Most of the livestock kills recorded were of adults with high market value – buffalo 10 000–30 000 rupees; cow 2000–8000 rupees. Livestock predation thus causes considerable economic loss contributing to 60% of annual livestock mortality. Therefore, losses incurred due to predation are compensated by the Gujarat Forest Department at rates calculated and revised Cell Cycle inhibitor periodically to reduce disparity

between market price of animal lost and compensation offered. In spite of this the instant financial incentive provided by monetary compensation to help reduce impact of loss due to predation, the cultural implications and emotional costs cannot be accounted for (Macdonald & Sillero-Zubiri, 2002). Therefore, people’s tolerance of livestock losses cannot be sustained by monetary compensation mechanisms alone. Human–carnivore conflict, particularly due to livestock predation is a global issue with no permanent solution. Based on our study, much of this

conflict Selleck HIF inhibitor is outside Gir PA, in private lands where neither livestock nor the owners can be moved or resettled. Improved husbandry practices based on ecological information on lion’s diet such as prey preference and time of attack in combination with the suggested livestock management practices and monetary compensation would be required for the continued positive attitude of local communities and long-term lion conservation. This project was funded by the Wildlife Institute of India. We are grateful to the Ministry of Environment and Forest, Government of India and Chief Wildlife Warden of Gujarat for permissions and facilitation. We would like to thank K. Bannerjee and field assistants, Biku, Taju, Ismail & Guga for helping in field data collection. We thank Vinod Thakur for guiding and helping with laboratory work. We are grateful to Shomita Mukherjee Manoj Nair, Mathew Hayward and unknown referee for critical comments and help with improving the paper. “
“The objective definition of geographic regions based

on biotic criteria is useful for summarizing biodiversity as well as for predicting the geographically differential effects of general trends and for planning an adequate DNA ligase distribution of the protected areas. We propose a regionalization of the Ibero-Balearic area based on butterfly presence–absence data and a synthesis of several clustering methods (similarity, parsimony analysis and multivariate techniques), and characterize the sub-regions on the basis of diagnostic species. Seven regions are proposed. The results showed two basic gradients, which apparently lead the butterfly species distributions within the study area: a north-east–south-west one, related to altitude and species richness, and a west–east one, implying a humidity or lithologic gradient.