Predator-mediated interactions through changes in predator home range size can lead to local prey exclusion
Bibliographic record
Abstract
1 Abstract The effects of indirect biotic interactions on species occurrence are difficult to quantify in the wild. In theory, the exclusion of a prey species can occur through the numerical and functional responses of a predator to another prey. Few studies assessed the relative effects of these responses on the net interaction strength between multiple prey sharing common predators, in part because empirically based multi-species functional response models are very rare. To investigate whether the presence of a prey species affects predation rates and population growth rate of another prey species, we used a multi-prey mechanistic model of predation along with a population matrix model. The predation model was parameterized using a combination of behavioral, demographic, and experimental data acquired in an arctic vertebrate community. It includes the arctic fox ( Vulpes lagopus ), a predator feeding primarily on small mammals as well as eggs of various bird species such as sandpipers and colonial nesting geese. Our results showed that the positive effects of the presence of a goose colony on sandpiper nesting success (due to the handling time of goose eggs by the predator) were outweighed by the negative effect of an increase in fox density. The numerical response of the arctic fox was driven by a reduction in home range size in the goose colony. As a result, the net interaction from the presence of geese was negative. Our results also showed that this interaction could lead to local exclusion of sandpipers over a range of adult sandpiper annual survival observed in the wild, which is coherent with previous observations of their co-distribution. Our approach takes into account diverse proximate mechanisms underpinning interaction strengths in a multi-prey system and generates novel insights on some of the predator behavioral responses that may influence prey coexistence (and the lack of) in vertebrate communities.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".