4/5/2024 0 Comments Predator vs prey and humans![]() They chase down their prey, and need open habitats to do so. Wolves, however, are not ambush predators. Coyotes are not large enough to kill elk and bison, and although pumas are large enough to kill elk on occasion, the large ungulates could easily avoid pumas by choosing to browse in open habitats-such as delicate riparian areas-that would stymie an ambush predator. Yellowstone was not predator-free prior to wolf reintroduction, but there were ecologically important differences between those other predators and wolves. ![]() In the decade following Brown’s foundational work, a flurry of papers came out, bolstered by the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park. ![]() Due to the lack of wildflowers in the open meadows-wildflowers that were perhaps the star attraction for a national park-tourists might stop coming, taking their vital admission fees with them. The forest interiors might become too overgrown, pushing out birds that require open understory, such as ovenbirds but the lack of mule deer might also allow oak seedlings to grow to maturity, regenerating the forest canopy. Wildflowers that native pollinators require might decline in the meadows, reducing the numbers of insects that sustain frogs and songbirds, in turn reducing the predators that eat them. If enough mule deer avoid the forest interior for the safety of an open meadow, they will eat more plants in the open meadow than the forest, which would change the vegetation structure of both areas. Imagine the following series of events: To avoid being eaten by a puma, a mule deer might avoid the forest interior for an open meadow, where an ambush predator would find it hard to hide. The idea that an organism might be afraid of being eaten is intuitive, but conceptualizing fear ecology allowed researchers to follow that intuition to its logical-or even surprising-conclusions.
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