Intra-guild competition and its implications for one of the biggest terrestrial predators, Tyrannosaurus rex.
Intra-guild competition and its implications for one of the biggest terrestrial predators, Tyrannosaurus rex.
复制标题
DOI：
10.1098/rspb.2010.2497
复制
发表时间：
2011-09-07
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Bielby J
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Carbone C;Turvey ST;Bielby J
在生态背景下确定狩猎和觅食之间的权衡对于理解捕食性行会很重要。在过去的一个世纪里，最大、最知名的陆生食肉动物之一暴龙霸王龙的觅食策略一直是许多争论的主题：它是一种活跃的捕食者还是义务的食腐动物？在这里，我们研究了成年霸王龙作为北美晚白垩世环境条件下的主要食腐动物的可行性，考虑到共域草食恐龙的大小分布以及可能与更多的小型兽脚类恐龙竞争。我们预测，近50%的食草动物会在55-85公斤的范围内，并根据预期的相遇比率计算出这些个体的身体会很快被较小的兽脚亚目动物吃掉。更大的身体将是非常罕见的，竞争激烈，使它们成为不可靠的食物来源。据预测，较小兽脚亚目动物的潜在身体搜索率是成年霸王龙的14-60倍。我们的结果表明，霸王龙和其他极大的食肉恐龙将无法作为专职食腐动物竞争，他们将主要猎杀大型脊椎动物猎物，类似于现代生态系统中的许多大型哺乳动物食肉动物。
Identifying tradeoffs between hunting and scavenging in an ecological context is important for understanding predatory guilds. In the past century, the feeding strategy of one of the largest and best-known terrestrial carnivores, Tyrannosaurus rex, has been the subject of much debate: was it an active predator or an obligate scavenger? Here we look at the feasibility of an adult T. rex being an obligate scavenger in the environmental conditions of Late Cretaceous North America, given the size distributions of sympatric herbivorous dinosaurs and likely competition with more abundant small-bodied theropods. We predict that nearly 50 per cent of herbivores would have been within a 55–85 kg range, and calculate based on expected encounter rates that carcasses from these individuals would have been quickly consumed by smaller theropods. Larger carcasses would have been very rare and heavily competed for, making them an unreliable food source. The potential carcass search rates of smaller theropods are predicted to be 14–60 times that of an adult T. rex. Our results suggest that T. rex and other extremely large carnivorous dinosaurs would have been unable to compete as obligate scavengers and would have primarily hunted large vertebrate prey, similar to many large mammalian carnivores in modern-day ecosystems.
登录
查看更多内容
影响因子：
64.8
作者：
Erickson, GM;Makovicky, PJ;Brochu, CA
通讯作者：
Brochu, CA
影响因子：
1.4
作者：
Boyd, Clint A.;Brown, Caleb Marshall;Clarke, Julia A.
通讯作者：
Clarke, Julia A.
影响因子：
9.8
作者：
Carbone, Chris;Teacher, Amber;Rowcliffe, J. Marcus
通讯作者：
Rowcliffe, J. Marcus
影响因子：
3.4
作者：
Butler, JRA;du Toit, JT
通讯作者：
du Toit, JT
影响因子：
64.8
作者：
Carbone, C;Mace, GM;Macdonald, DW
通讯作者：
Macdonald, DW