Predator control of carrion resources and associated ecological heterogeneity

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The roles that apex predators play in ecosystems are still debated among researchers and wildlife managers. This project will examine a novel role for these predators, which is their ability to generate hotspots of biological activity by controlling carrion resources. Understanding the diverse functions of apex predators will contribute to sustainable wilderness management, directly enhancing citizen enjoyment and appreciation of wilderness and wildlife for recreation. The project will also advance public awareness of the importance of apex predators, improving societal awareness of wilderness and wildlife preservation. Efforts to maintain carrion resources will help to sustain other species and ecosystem health. The investigators will work with wildlife managers in US National Parks to develop educational maps for outreach and interpretation. Animal remains and scavenger activity created at carcass sites are visually captivating to students of all ages. Investigators will partner with the Western Upper Peninsula Michigan Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education to create a regional remote camera lending depot and lesson plans for recording biological activity at carcass sites. These activities will engage K-12 educators and students in the field of carrion ecology.Carrion occurs in all biomes. It represents a bottleneck in the vital flow of energy and limiting nutrients with profound ecological and evolutionary consequences. Carrion constitutes a critical resource for a variety of communities and it strongly affects scavenger guilds, the maintenance of biodiversity, and fundamental ecological processes. This research will investigate the poorly understood role of predation in controlling carrion resources, shaping carcass distributions, and generating a shifting mosaic of biogeochemical and community activity. Two interrelated sets of questions will be addressed across four terrestrial ecosystems: 1) How do carrion-derived effects vary across multiple ecosystems and across a diversity of predator-prey communities? And 2) How does predation influence carrion distribution across space and time? Experiments and field studies will reveal above and belowground carrion effects across key biomes. This understanding will be coupled with spatial records of carcasses to examine predator control of carrion resources across multiple scales. Data from experiments, field studies and carcass records will be incorporated into spatial models to examine predator-carrion dynamics and predation controls over carrion resource flow compared to die-offs. The focal systems span a range of ecosystems and predator-prey diversity, and will yield both general patterns and identify distinct differences in predator control of carrion resources across biomes. In examining predator control of carrion resources, this work addresses both the fundamental focus in ecology on mechanisms of trophic control of community and ecosystem structure and explores a novel concept that can add to a comprehensive view of the ecological role of predators.