As the world becomes more crowded, setting aside time, as well as space, for other species could help humans to live harmoniously alongside wildlife.

Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University in East Lansing and his team came up with the idea after analysing footage from motion-activated cameras they had set up in and around Nepal's Chitwan National Park. The team detected high levels of both human and tiger activity in the park, and found that the geographical activity patterns of the two species overlapped: any given camera was likely to collect images of both. Yet there was little conflict between humans and tigers in the park, probably because 80% of tiger detections occurred at night, when humans are generally at home. Outside the park, where humans are even thicker on the ground, 95% of tiger detections were at night.

Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1210490109 (2012)