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.

该项目探讨了大型非洲掠食者的种群动态，询问斑点鬣狗，豹子和猎豹如何能够与狮子一起生活，因为狮子经常骚扰和杀死这些较小的掠食者。研究人员将整合狮子调查的数据和相机陷阱的数据，以确定鬣狗、豹子和猎豹如何在景观中分布，以及栖息地利用的差异如何使这些物种与狮子共存。了解捕食者如何共存对于了解大型生态系统的功能非常重要。最近的研究强调了顶级捕食者对生态系统的深远影响;破坏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。预测不稳定如何以及为什么发生的能力是防止有多种捕食者的生态系统生态崩溃的必要的第一步。该项目将通过一个公民科学平台（www.SnapshotSerengeti.org）吸引公众参与，在该平台上，公众可以帮助识别相机陷阱拍摄的照片中的野生动物。随着人类活动的变化导致世界各地大型食肉动物数量的持续减少，对生态系统稳定性的研究变得越来越重要，公众参与研究也越来越重要。更具体地说，这项研究将通过比较南非两个有狮子和没有狮子的保护区中斑点鬣狗、豹子和猎豹的分布和种群规模，来测试塞伦盖蒂正在进行的捕食者研究的预测。例如，如果没有狮子，豹的数量可能会更高，或者鬣狗可能占据主要的河流栖息地。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是最小的，相反，抑制似乎主要是通过直接的侵略和大规模的回避反应，取代从属物种从大部分的景观介导。在传统的捕食-被捕食系统中，这种捕食风险的非消耗效应（NCE）创造了一种“恐惧景观”，这种景观对捕食-被捕食动态比实际捕食更重要。例如，它可以是营养级联背后的驱动力。然而，NCE在驱动种群动态中的作用几乎只在小规模捕食者-被捕食者系统中进行了研究。该项目调查的作用，NCES在驱动顶点中食肉动物共存的大型非洲食肉动物的公会。这项研究有两个目的：（1）比较大规模的位移在驱动狮子-中型捕食者共存的影响，（2）评估景观结构和行为回避在多个空间和时间尺度上调解狮子-中型捕食者共存的作用。据预测，复杂的景观将有利于细尺度分区，从而通过最大限度地减少大规模的位移共存。