Cascading impacts of large-carnivore extirpation in an African ecosystem
Cascading impacts of large-carnivore extirpation in an African ecosystem
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DOI：
10.1126/science.aau3561
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发表时间：
2019-04-12
期刊：
影响因子：
56.9
通讯作者：
Pringle, Robert M.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Atkins, Justine L.;Long, Ryan A.;Pringle, Robert M.
世界上最大的食肉动物的数量正在下降，现在只占其历史范围的一小部分。理论预测，当顶级掠食者消失时，大型食草动物变得不那么可怕，占据新的栖息地，并通过食用新的食用植物来改变这些栖息地。然而，在大型哺乳动物系统中很难获得对这一预测的实验支持。在莫桑比克戈龙戈萨国家公园的豹子和非洲野狗灭绝后，森林羚羊（Tragelaphus sylvaticus）扩展到没有树木的洪泛平原，在那里它们食用新的食物，并抑制了一种常见的食用植物（Bergia mossambicensis）。通过实验模拟捕食风险，我们证明了这种行为是可逆的。因此，虽然人为的捕食者灭绝破坏了一个营养级联，使猎物行为的快速分化，食肉动物恢复可能只是迅速重建级联。
Populations of the world's largest carnivores are declining and now occupy mere fractions of their historical ranges. Theory predicts that when apex predators disappear, large herbivores become less fearful, occupy new habitats, and modify those habitats by eating new food plants. Yet experimental support for this prediction has been difficult to obtain in large-mammal systems. After the extirpation of leopards and African wild dogs from Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, forest-dwelling antelopes [bushbuck (Tragelaphus sylvaticus)] expanded into treeless floodplains, where they consumed novel diets and suppressed a common food plant [waterwort (Bergia mossambicensis)]. By experimentally simulating predation risk, we demonstrate that this behavior was reversible. Thus, whereas anthropogenic predator extinction disrupted a trophic cascade by enabling rapid differentiation of prey behavior, carnivore restoration may just as rapidly reestablish that cascade.