BEYOND ABUNDANCE: HOW TOP PREDATORS AFFECT MESOPREDATOR BEHAVIOUR AND LIFE HISTORY

顶级捕食者对生物多样性有很大影响。生物多样性高的地区吸引旅游收入，并提供宝贵的生态系统服务。在澳大利亚，高度的生物多样性，以及观看顶级捕食者的机会，提高了游客的体验质量，并增加了他们访问一个地区的可能性，但澳大利亚有许多高度分散的生态系统，失去了顶级捕食者。顶级掠食者的消失可能导致中层掠食者种群的扩大，并伴随着生物多样性的丧失。在澳大利亚，蜥蜴是陆地系统中主要的顶级和中级捕食者，我们的研究将直接解决捕食者消失的后果，并提供管理策略来处理它。

Top predators strongly influence biodiversity. Areas with high biodiversity attract tourism income and provide valuable ecosystem services. In Australia, high biodiversity, and the opportunity to view top predators, increase the experience quality of tourists, and increase the probability that they will visit an area, but Australia has many highly fragmented ecosystems, which lose top predators. Disappearance of top predators can lead to expanding populations of mid-level predators, and concomitant losses of biodiversity. In Australia, where lizards are major top- and mid-level predators in terrestrial systems, our study will directly address the consequences of predator disappearance, and provide management strategies to deal with it.