The removal of top-level predators, often through human agency, can cause or disrupt trophic cascades. Such wide-ranging effects on lower levels of an ecosystem are termed trophic cascades. When introduced to subarctic islands, for example, Arctic foxes' predation of seabirds has been shown to turn grassland into the tundra. They are central to the functioning of ecosystems, the regulation of disease, and the maintenance of biodiversity. Effects on ecosystem Īpex predators can have profound effects on ecosystems, as the consequences of both controlling prey density and restricting smaller predators, and may be capable of self-regulation. Predators that exert top-down control on organisms in their community are often considered keystone species.
KINGDOM OF PREDATORS TRIAL
Removal of badgers (in a trial investigating bovine tuberculosis) caused hedgehog densities to more than double. As a terrestrial example, the badger, an apex predator, preys upon and also competes with the hedgehog, a mesopredator, for food such as insects, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and the eggs of ground-nesting birds. A lake manipulation study found that when the non-native smallmouth bass was removed, lake trout, the suppressed native apex predator, diversified its prey selection and increased its trophic level. Non-native predatory fish, for instance, have sometimes devastated formerly dominant predators. Īpex predators affect prey species' population dynamics and populations of other predators, both in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The great skua is an aerial apex predator, both preying on other seabirds and bullying them for their catches. These include interactions via ecotourism, such as with the tiger shark, and through rewilding efforts, such as the proposed reintroduction of the Iberian lynx.Įcological roles Effects on community More recently, humans have started interacting with apex predators in new ways. Humans have for many centuries interacted with apex predators including the wolf, birds of prey, and cormorants to hunt game animals, birds, and fish respectively. The apex predator concept is applied in wildlife management, conservation, and ecotourism.Īpex predators have a long evolutionary history, dating at least to the Cambrian period when animals such as Anomalocaris dominated the seas. Food chains are often far shorter on land, usually limited to being secondary consumers – for example, wolves prey mostly upon large herbivores (primary consumers), which eat plants (primary producers). Īpex predators are usually defined in terms of trophic dynamics, meaning that they occupy the highest trophic levels. The great white shark (bottom) was originally considered an apex predator of the ocean however, the orca (killer whale, top) has proven to be a predator of the shark.Īn apex predator, also known as a top predator, is a predator at the top of a food chain, without natural predators of its own.
0 kommentar(er)
