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Return of an apex predator to a suburban preserve triggers a rapid trophic cascade

View ORCID ProfileKevin Leempoel, Jordana Meyer, Trevor Hebert, Nicole Nova, View ORCID ProfileElizabeth A. Hadly
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/564294
Kevin Leempoel
1Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
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Jordana Meyer
1Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
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Trevor Hebert
2Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
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Nicole Nova
1Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
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Elizabeth A. Hadly
1Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
2Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
3Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
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ABSTRACT

Absence of apex predators simplifies food chains, leading to trophic degradation of ecosystems and diminution of the services they provide1. However, most predators do not coexist well with humans, which has resulted in a decline of carnivores and functional ecosystems worldwide2. In some instances, cryptic carnivores manage to survive amidst human settlements, finding refuge in small biological islands surrounded by urban landscapes. In such a system, we used two non-invasive data collection methods (camera trapping and fecal sampling) to investigate the multiannual relationship between predators and prey, and between competitors, through analysis of: (1) relative abundance and detection probability of species over time, (2) causal interactions via empirical dynamic modeling, (3) diet, and (4) diel activity patterns. All approaches show concordance in the results: the natural return of an apex predator, the puma (Puma concolor), triggered a trophic cascade, affecting the abundance and behavior of its main prey, subordinate predators and other prey in the studied system. Our study demonstrates that trophic recovery can occur rapidly following the return of a top predator, even in small protected areas in increasingly urbanized landscapes.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted March 01, 2019.
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Return of an apex predator to a suburban preserve triggers a rapid trophic cascade
Kevin Leempoel, Jordana Meyer, Trevor Hebert, Nicole Nova, Elizabeth A. Hadly
bioRxiv 564294; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/564294
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Return of an apex predator to a suburban preserve triggers a rapid trophic cascade
Kevin Leempoel, Jordana Meyer, Trevor Hebert, Nicole Nova, Elizabeth A. Hadly
bioRxiv 564294; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/564294

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