Numerical response of predators to large variations of grassland vole abundance and long-term community change ...

Voles can reach high densities with multi-annual population fluctuations of large amplitude, and they are at the base of predator communities in Northern Eurasia and Northern America. This status places them at the heart of management conflicts wherein crop protection and health concerns are often r...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Giraudoux, Patrick, Couval, Geoffroy
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: Dryad 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.qz612jmd3
https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.qz612jmd3
Description
Summary:Voles can reach high densities with multi-annual population fluctuations of large amplitude, and they are at the base of predator communities in Northern Eurasia and Northern America. This status places them at the heart of management conflicts wherein crop protection and health concerns are often raised against conservation issues. Here, a 20-year survey describes the effects of large variations in grassland vole populations on the densities and the daily theoretical food intakes (TFI) of vole predators based on roadside counts. Our results show how the predator community responded to prey variations of large amplitude and how it reorganized with the increase in a dominant predator, here the red fox, which likely negatively impacted hare, European wildcat and domestic cat populations. This population increase did not lead to an increase in the average number of predators present in the study area, suggesting compensations among resident species due to intra-guild predation or competition. Large variations ... : All details are given in the article cited above. ...