Donadio Emiliano, Buskirk Steven W
Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071, USA.
Am Nat. 2006 Apr;167(4):524-36. doi: 10.1086/501033. Epub 2006 Mar 7.
Interspecific killing is a key determinant of the abundances and distributions of carnivores, their prey, and nonprey community members. Similarity of body size has been proposed to lead competitors to seek similar prey, which increases the likelihood of interference encounters, including lethal ones. We explored the influence of body size, diet, predatory habits, and taxonomic relatedness on interspecific killing. The frequency of attacks depends on differences in body size: at small and large differences, attacks are less likely to occur; at intermediate differences, killing interactions are frequent and related to diet overlap. Further, the importance of interspecific killing as a mortality factor in the victim population increases with an increase in body size differences between killers and victims. Carnivores highly adapted to kill vertebrate prey are more prone to killing interactions, usually with animals of similar predatory habits. Family-level taxonomy influences killing interactions; carnivores tend to interact more with species in the same family than with species in different families. We conclude that although resource exploitation (diet), predatory habits, and taxonomy are influential in predisposing carnivores to attack each other, relative body size of the participants is overwhelmingly important. We discuss the implications of interspecific killing for body size and the dynamics of geographic ranges.
种间杀戮是食肉动物、其猎物以及非猎物群落成员数量和分布的关键决定因素。有人提出，体型相似会导致竞争者寻找相似的猎物，这增加了包括致命冲突在内的干扰性相遇的可能性。我们探究了体型、饮食、捕食习性和分类学亲缘关系对种间杀戮的影响。攻击频率取决于体型差异：差异较小和较大时，攻击不太可能发生；差异中等时，杀戮互动频繁且与饮食重叠有关。此外，种间杀戮作为受害者种群死亡因素的重要性随着杀戮者与受害者之间体型差异的增加而增加。高度适应捕杀脊椎动物猎物的食肉动物更容易发生杀戮互动，通常是与具有相似捕食习性的动物。科级分类学影响杀戮互动；食肉动物往往与同科物种的互动比与不同科物种的互动更多。我们得出结论，尽管资源利用（饮食）、捕食习性和分类学在使食肉动物倾向于相互攻击方面有影响，但参与者的相对体型至关重要。我们讨论了种间杀戮对体型和地理范围动态的影响。
