Abstract

Conservation of competitively subordinate carnivores presents a difficult challenge because they are limited by dominant competitors. Prey depletion is one of the leading causes of large carnivore decline worldwide, but little is known about the net effect of prey depletion on subordinate carnivores when their dominant competitors are also reduced. African wild dogs are often limited by high densities of dominant competitors, particularly lions. We measured African wild dog density and survival, using mark-recapture models fit to 8 years of data from 425 known individuals in the Greater Kafue Ecosystem, Zambia. The GKE is affected by prey depletion, particularly of large herbivores, and thus the density of lions is significantly lower than ecologically comparable ecosystems. Counter to expectations from mesopredator release theory, wild dog density in GKE was far lower than comparable ecosystems with higher lion and prey density, though annual survival rates were comparable to large and stable populations. Average pack size was small and home range size was among the largest recorded. Our results show that low lion density did not competitively release the GKE wild dog population and we infer that the low density of wild dogs was a product of low prey density. Our results suggest that there is an optimal ratio of prey and competitors at which wild dogs achieve their highest densities. This finding has immediate implications for the conservation of the endangered African wild dog, and broad implications for the conservation of subordinate species affected by resource depletion and intraguild competition.

Keywords

Intraguild competition; Large carnivore; Interspecific competition; African wild dog; Prey depletion; Kafue National Park

Published in

Biological Conservation
2021, Volume: 261, article number: 109273
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCI LTD

SLU Authors

• Creel, Scott

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Montana State University
  • Montana State University Bozeman
  • Zambian Carnivore Programme

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109273

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/113591