Community Structure of South American Carnivores in the Past and Present

FRANCISCO J. PREVOSTI; PEREIRA, JAVIER

JOURNAL OF MAMMALIAN EVOLUTION

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2014 vol. 21 p. 363 - 368

1064-7554

Understanding the causes that structure natural communities has long been animportant goal for biologists. The question of what regulates the distribution andabundance of species in communities is central because it connects widespreadprocesses (e.g., competition, predation), historical effects, and the interactions ofthese competing mechanisms with the mixture dependent on the habitats andorganisms involved. Carnivores (mammals with a carnivorous diet), particularly,play a crucial role in maintaining the structure and stability of communitiesthrough predation, competition, or by altering prey behavior and prey habitatselection. For this reason, they have been used as a model to understand theeffects of competition or top-down control in community structure. Althoughcarnivores are naturally rare, due to their position at the top of the food web,their removal can have a variety of cascading effects within the community(Ripple et al. 2013 ).