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人口动态，询问斑点鬣狗，豹子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。研究人员将将狮子调查的数据与来自摄像头的数据集成在一起，以确定鬣狗，豹子和猎豹如何相对于狮子在整个景观中分配自己，以及在栖息地使用的差异如何使这些物种能够在有和无狮子的情况下共存。了解捕食者如何并存对于理解大型生态系统的功能很重要。最近的研究强调了顶级捕食者对生态系统的深远影响。破坏捕食者种群会以意想不到的方式破坏自然系统。预测如何以及为什么发生不稳定的能力是防止多种类型的捕食者生态系统生态崩溃的必要第一步。该项目将通过公民科学平台（www.snapshotserengeti.org）吸引公众，其中公共成员在相机陷阱拍摄的照片中帮助识别野生动物。随着人为变化的发展，世界各地大型捕食者的持续下降，对生态系统稳定性的研究变得越来越相关，就像公众参与研究一样。更具体地说，这项研究将通过比较Spotted Hyenas，Leopards，Leopards和Cheetahs的分布和人口大小，在Serengeti中正在进行的捕食者研究中进行预测，这是两种与南外非洲人的群众的比较。例如，如果没有狮子，豹子数可能会更高，或者鬣狗可能占据主要的河流栖息地。这种类型的反应是可以预期的，因为哺乳动物捕食者之间的重叠通常是最小的。取而代之的是，抑制似乎主要是通过直接侵略和大规模回避反应来介导的，从而使下属物种从景观的大部分中取代。在传统的捕食者系统中，这种捕食风险的非消费效应（NCE）创造了一种“恐惧的景观”，对于捕食者捕食动态而言，它比实际捕食更重要。例如，它可以是营养级联反击的驱动力。但是，NCE在驱动种群动态中的作用几乎完全在小型捕食者捕食系统中进行了研究。该项目调查了NCE在大型非洲食肉动物协会中驱动Apex-Mesopredator共存中的作用。这项研究的目的有两个：（1）比较大规模位移在驱动狮子式诊断者共存中的影响，（2）评估景观结构和行为避免在多个空间和时间尺度上避免行为的作用。据预测，复杂的景观将通过最小化大规模位移来促进细度分区，从而促进并存。