ArticleScientific reports2022
Refining the stress gradient hypothesis for mixed species groups of African mammals.
Article in Scientific reports, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Social network dynamics under experimental manipulations of predation risk and food abundance in wild rock hyraxes.The Journal of animal ecology · 2026Pooled it
- Zebra stripes: the questions raised by the answers.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Zebra Risk Perception in a Landscape of Fear.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Mixed-species flock sizes and compositions influence flock members' success in three field experiments with novel feeders.PloS one · 2024Article
- Identifying the social context of single- and mixed-species group formation in large African herbivores.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Network structure of avian mixed-species flocks decays with elevation and latitude across the Andes.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Testing the stress gradient hypothesis in soil bacterial communities associated with vegetation belts in the Andean Atacama Desert.Environmental microbiome · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Species interactions such as facilitation and predation influence food webs, yet it is unclear how they are mediated by environmental gradients. Here we test the stress gradient hypothesis which predicts that positive species interactions increase with stress. Drawing upon spatially-explicit data of large mammals in an African savanna, we tested how predation risk and primary productivity mediate the occurrence of mixed species groups. Controlling for habitat structure, predation risk by lions and primary productivity affected the frequency of mixed species groups in species-specific ways, likely reflecting distinct stress perceptions. To test whether mixed species groups indicate positive interactions, we conducted network analyses for specific scenarios. Under predation risk, dyadic associations with giraffes were more pronounced and metrics of animal networks changed markedly. However, dyadic association and network metrics were weakly mediated by primary productivity. The composition of mixed species groups was associated with similarities in prey susceptibility but not with similarities in feeding habits of herbivores. Especially predation risk favoured the frequency of mixed species groups and pronounced dyadic associations which dilute predation risk and increase predator detection. While our results provide support for the stress gradient hypothesis, they also highlight that the relative importance of stressors is context-dependent.
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