ArticleCommunications biology2023
Humanity's diverse predatory niche and its ecological consequences.
Article in Communications biology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- Predator-prey temporal niche partitioning under human disturbance: a meta-analysis.Nature communications · 2026Pooled it
- Are Human Super-Predators Always Super-Scary? A Meta-Analysis of Wild Animal Behavioural Responses to Human Interactions.Ecology letters · 2025Pooled it
- The Efficacy of Fisheries Management: A Length-Based Stock Assessment of Eight Fish Species in Xingkai Lake, China.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Integrating spatial and behavioral data provides comprehensive assessment of grizzly bear-ecotourism coexistence in Nuxalk Territory.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- When humans shield predators from danger.Trends in ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Pangolin hunting in southeast Nigeria is motivated more by local meat consumption than international demand for scales.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Dietary species richness for healthy people and ecosystems.Nature food · 2025Article
- Trophic Cascades and Habitat Suitability in Udanti Sitanadi Tiger Reserve: Impacts of Prey Depletion and Climate Change on Predator-Prey Dynamics.Zoological studies · 2025Article
- Anthropogenic impacts at the interface of animal spatial and social behaviour.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Fear of the human 'super predator' in native marsupials and introduced deer in Australia.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Undiscovered bird extinctions obscure the true magnitude of human-driven extinction waves.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Integrated plant conservation through the Global Conservation Consortia.Applications in plant sciencesReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors at 9 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Although humans have long been predators with enduring nutritive and cultural relationships with their prey, seldom have conservation ecologists considered the divergent predatory behavior of contemporary, industrialized humans. Recognizing that the number, strength and diversity of predator-prey relationships can profoundly influence biodiversity, here we analyze humanity's modern day predatory interactions with vertebrates and estimate their ecological consequences. Analysing IUCN 'use and trade' data for ~47,000 species, we show that fishers, hunters and other animal collectors prey on more than a third (~15,000 species) of Earth's vertebrates. Assessed over equivalent ranges, humans exploit up to 300 times more species than comparable non-human predators. Exploitation for the pet trade, medicine, and other uses now affects almost as many species as those targeted for food consumption, and almost 40% of exploited species are threatened by human use. Trait space analyses show that birds and mammals threatened by exploitation occupy a disproportionally large and unique region of ecological trait space, now at risk of loss. These patterns suggest far more species are subject to human-imposed ecological (e.g., landscapes of fear) and evolutionary (e.g., harvest selection) processes than previously considered. Moreover, continued overexploitation will likely bear profound consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem function.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.