ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Variable strategies to solve risk-reward tradeoffs in carnivore communities.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed.
- Fear of humans mediates spatiotemporal interactions between endangered large Asian felids.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2026Article
- Individual Identification of Prey in Carnivore Scats.Molecular ecology resources · 2026Article
- The influence of bottom-up and top-down effects on the distribution and density of common leopards (Panthera pardus) in an Eastern Himalayan landscape.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Species-specific interactions with apex carnivores yield unique benefits and burdens for mesocarnivores.Ecology · 2026Article
- Diets, dominance hierarchies, and kleptoparasitism drive asymmetrical interactions between wolves and cougars.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Density and Coexistence Patterns of an Apex Carnivore (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Describing Diet of Imperiled Sierra Nevada Red Foxes and a Carnivoran Competitor Using DNA Metabarcoding.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Navigating the risks and rewards of scavenging in multipredator, human-impacted landscapes.Ecology · 2025Article
- Feeding Habits of Leopards and Leopard Cats in the Fragmented Forests Surrounding the Kathmandu Valley.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Intraspecific encounters can lead to reduced range overlap.Movement ecology · 2024Article
- Resource pulses shape seasonal and individual variation in the diet of an omnivorous carnivore.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Spatio-temporal interactions between the red fox and the wolf in two contrasting European landscapes.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Badgers remain fearless in the face of simulated wolf presence near their setts.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Prediction of in-hospital mortality risk for patients with acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction after primary PCI based on predictors selected by GRACE score and two feature selection methods.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2024Article
- Nearby night lighting, rather than sky glow, is associated with habitat selection by a top predator in human-dominated landscapes.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Diet selection in the CoyoteJournal of mammalogy · 2023Article
- Interactions between carnivore species: limited spatiotemporal partitioning between apex predator and smaller carnivores in a Mediterranean protected area.Frontiers in zoology · 2023Article
- Understanding carnivore interactions in a cold arid trans-Himalayan landscape: What drives co-existence patterns within predator guild along varying resource gradients?Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Dominant carnivore loss benefits native avian and invasive mammalian scavengers.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Wolf risk fails to inspire fear in two mesocarnivores suggesting facilitation prevails.Scientific reports · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mesopredator release theory suggests that dominant predators suppress subordinate carnivores and ultimately shape community dynamics, but the assumption that subordinate species are only negatively affected ignores the possibility of facilitation through scavenging. We examined the interplay within a carnivore community consisting of cougars, coyotes, black bears, and bobcats using contemporaneous Global Positioning System telemetry data from 51 individuals; diet analysis from 972 DNA-metabarcoded scats; and data from 128 physical investigations of cougar kill sites, 28 of which were monitored with remote cameras. Resource provisioning from competitively dominant cougars to coyotes through scavenging was so prolific as to be an overwhelming determinant of coyote behavior, space use, and resource acquisition. This was evident via the strong attraction of coyotes to cougar kill sites, frequent scavenging of cougar-killed prey, and coyote diets that nearly matched cougars in the magnitude of ungulate consumption. Yet coyotes were often killed by cougars and used space to minimize encounters, complicating the fitness benefits gained from scavenging. We estimated that 23% (95% CI: 8 to 55%) of the coyote population in our study area was killed by cougars annually, suggesting that coyote interactions with cougars are a complex behavioral game of risk and reward. In contrast, we found no indication that bobcat space use or diet was influenced by cougars. Black bears avoided cougars, but there was no evidence of attraction to cougar kill sites and much lower levels of ungulate consumption and carcass visitation than for coyotes. Interspecific interactions among carnivores are multifaceted, encompassing both suppression and facilitation.
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