The Rurban elephant: Behavioural ecology of Asian elephants in response to large-scale landuse change in a human-dominated landscape in peri-urban southern India

In this chapter, we assess the impacts of such transformations on the lives of India’s largest land mammal, the Asian elephant and discuss the adaptations displayed by this species to human-induced change, with a particular focus on how the successful exploitation of rurban agricultural resources has allowed for the appearance of spatially and temporally flexible behavioural innovations that, in turn, have impacted the life-history strategies of a threatened elephant population in a peri-urban region of southern India