Nature Communications (May 2017)

Top predators constrain mesopredator distributions

  • Thomas M. Newsome,
  • Aaron C. Greenville,
  • Duško Ćirović,
  • Christopher R. Dickman,
  • Chris N. Johnson,
  • Miha Krofel,
  • Mike Letnic,
  • William J. Ripple,
  • Euan G. Ritchie,
  • Stoyan Stoyanov,
  • Aaron J. Wirsing

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15469
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 7

Abstract

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Top predators can reduce local mesopredator abundance either through direct predation or behavioural changes. Here, Newsome and colleagues demonstrate at a landscape scale across three continents that mesopredator populations are suppressed at the core, but less so on the periphery, of top predators’ ranges.