Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London, UK.
Biol Lett. 2011 Apr 23;7(2):312-5. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.0996. Epub 2010 Nov 24.
Large carnivores are highly threatened, yet the processes underlying their population declines are still poorly understood and widely debated. We explored how body mass and prey abundance influence carnivore density using data on 199 populations obtained across multiple sites for 11 carnivore species. We found that relative decreases in prey abundance resulted in a five- to sixfold greater decrease in the largest carnivores compared with the smallest species. We discuss a number of possible causes for this inherent vulnerability, but also explore a possible mechanistic link between predator size, energetics and population processes. Our results have important implications for carnivore ecology and conservation, demonstrating that larger species are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic threats to their environment, especially those which have an adverse affect on the abundance of their prey.
大型食肉动物受到高度威胁，但它们种群减少的背后过程仍未被充分理解，且存在广泛争议。我们使用跨多个地点收集的 11 种食肉动物的 199 个种群的数据，探讨了体型大小和猎物丰度如何影响食肉动物的密度。我们发现，与最小的物种相比，猎物丰度相对减少导致最大的食肉动物数量减少了五到六倍。我们讨论了一些导致这种固有脆弱性的可能原因，但也探讨了捕食者体型、能量学和种群过程之间可能存在的机制联系。我们的研究结果对食肉动物生态学和保护具有重要意义，表明较大的物种特别容易受到对其环境的人为威胁的影响，尤其是那些对其猎物丰度产生不利影响的威胁。
