DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Can avoidance behavior and landscape complexity explain patterns of predator coexistence in mammalian carnivores?

论文研究：回避行为和景观复杂性可以解释哺乳动物食肉动物中捕食者共存的模式吗？

• 批准号: 1405385
• 负责人: Craig Packer
• 金额: $ 1.38万
• 依托单位: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-06-01 至 2015-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1405385&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISSERTATION; RESEARCH; avoidance; behavior; landscape

This project explores the population dynamics of large African predators, asking how spotted hyenas, leopards, and cheetahs are able to live with lions, given that lions frequently harass and kill these smaller predators. Investigators will integrate data from surveys of lions with data from camera traps to determine how hyenas, leopards, and cheetahs distribute themselves across the landscape with respect to lions, and how differences in habitat use enable these species to coexist with and without lions. Understanding how predators coexist is important for understanding how large ecosystems function. Recent research has emphasized the profound effects that top predators can have on ecosystems; disrupting predator populations can destabilize natural systems in unexpected ways. The ability to predict how and why destabilization occurs is a necessary first step to preventing the ecological collapse of ecosystems with many types of predators. This project will engage the public through a citizen science platform (www.SnapshotSerengeti.org) in which members of the public help identify wild animals in photographs taken by camera traps. As anthropogenic change drives the continued decline of large predators around the world, research on ecosystem stability becomes increasingly relevant, as does public engagement in research.More specifically, this study will test predictions from an ongoing predator study in the Serengeti by comparing distributions and population sizes of spotted hyenas, leopards, and cheetahs across two South African reserves with and without lions. For example, without lions, leopard numbers may higher or hyenas may occupy prime riverine habitats. This type of response is expected because overlap between mammalian predators is typically minimal; instead, suppression appears to be mediated primarily through direct aggression and a large-scale avoidance response that displaces subordinate species from large portions of the landscape. In traditional predator-prey systems, this non-consumptive effect (NCE) of predation risk creates a "landscape of fear" that can be more important for predator-prey dynamics than actual predation. It can, for example, be the driving force behind trophic cascades. However, the role of NCEs in driving population dynamics has been almost exclusively investigated in small scale predator-prey systems. This project investigates the role of NCEs in driving apex-mesopredator coexistence in a guild of large African carnivores. The research has two aims: (1) to compare effects of large-scale displacement in driving lion-mesopredator coexistence, and (2) to evaluate the role of landscape structure and behavioral avoidance at multiple spatial and temporal scales in mediating lion-mesopredator coexistence. It is predicted that complex landscapes will facilitate fine-scale partitioning and thus coexistence by minimizing large-scale displacement.

这个项目探索大型非洲捕食者的种群动态，询问斑点鬣狗、豹和猎豹如何能够与狮子生活在一起，因为狮子经常骚扰和杀死这些较小的捕食者。调查人员将结合对狮子的调查数据和相机陷阱的数据，以确定鬣狗、豹和猎豹如何相对于狮子在整个景观中分布，以及栖息地使用的差异如何使这些物种与狮子共存或不与狮子共存。了解捕食者是如何共存的，对于了解大型生态系统是如何运作的很重要。最近的研究强调了顶级捕食者对生态系统的深远影响；扰乱捕食者种群可能会以意想不到的方式破坏自然系统的稳定。能够预测如何以及为什么发生不稳定是防止生态系统崩溃的必要的第一步，生态系统有多种类型的捕食者。该项目将通过公民科学平台(www.SnapshotSerengenti.org)让公众参与，在该平台上，公众帮助识别通过相机陷阱拍摄的照片中的野生动物。随着人为变化导致世界各地大型捕食者的持续减少，对生态系统稳定性的研究变得越来越重要，公众参与研究也变得越来越重要。更具体地说，这项研究将通过比较带和不带狮子的两个南非保护区的斑点鬣狗、豹和猎豹的分布和种群规模，来检验正在进行的塞伦盖蒂捕食者研究的预测。例如，如果没有狮子，豹子的数量可能会更多，或者鬣狗可能会占据河边的主要栖息地。这种类型的反应是预期的，因为哺乳动物捕食者之间的重叠通常很小；相反，压制似乎主要是通过直接攻击和大规模的回避反应来调节的，这种反应将从属物种从大片土地上赶走。在传统的捕食者-猎物系统中，捕食风险的这种非消耗性效应(NCE)创造了一种“恐惧的景象”，这对捕食者-猎物的动力学可能比实际的捕食更重要。例如，它可能是营养瀑布背后的驱动力。然而，NCEs在驱动种群动态中的作用几乎只在小规模的捕食-被捕食系统中被研究过。这个项目调查了NCEs在推动非洲大型食肉动物协会中顶端和中端捕食者共存方面的作用。本研究有两个目的：(1)比较大范围移位在驱动狮子-中掠食者共存中的作用；(2)在多时空尺度上评估景观结构和行为回避在调节狮子-中掠食者共存中的作用。据预测，复杂的地貌将通过最大限度地减少大规模的位移，促进精细的分区，从而实现共存。