U.S.-France Cooperative Research: Theoretical Studies on the Conservation Implications of Predator Removal and Introductions

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This three-year award will support U.S.-France cooperative research in theoretical community ecology between Robert D. Holt of the University of Kansas and Michael Hochberg of the Ecole Normale Superieure's Ecology Laboratory in Paris, France. The project links an NSF-funded Long-Term Project in Environmental Biology to the biodiversity research program supported by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). The research project is motivated by problems in conservation biology arising from removal of native predators from communities and the introduction of exotic predators into communities. The investigators propose to study the consequences of predator manipulation from detailed analyses of community models. These communities consist of a small number of species interacting in a prescribed manner. In their analyses of these models, the investigators will address issues such as unlinked food chains, predators feeding on competing and non competing prey, and pairs of predator species attacking pairs of prey. The U.S. investigator brings to this collaboration considerable expertise in general ecological theory. This is complemented by the French investigator's research on models tailored to empirical population studies in conservation biology. The proposal's focus on predator removals and additions has conservation and biological control implications. Its results may lead to improved practices in environmental management.