Publication Date:
2014-10-18
Description:
Understanding how predation risk and plant defenses interactively shape plant distributions is a core challenge in ecology. By combining global positioning system telemetry of an abundant antelope (impala) and its main predators (leopards and wild dogs) with a series of manipulative field experiments, we showed that herbivores' risk-avoidance behavior and plants' antiherbivore defenses interact to determine tree distributions in an African savanna. Well-defended thorny Acacia trees (A. etbaica) were abundant in low-risk areas where impala aggregated but rare in high-risk areas that impala avoided. In contrast, poorly defended trees (A. brevispica) were more abundant in high- than in low-risk areas. Our results suggest that plants can persist in landscapes characterized by intense herbivory, either by defending themselves or by thriving in risky areas where carnivores hunt.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Ford, Adam T -- Goheen, Jacob R -- Otieno, Tobias O -- Bidner, Laura -- Isbell, Lynne A -- Palmer, Todd M -- Ward, David -- Woodroffe, Rosie -- Pringle, Robert M -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Oct 17;346(6207):346-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1252753.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Mpala Research Centre, Post Office Box 555, Nanyuki, Kenya. atford@zoology.ubc.ca. ; Mpala Research Centre, Post Office Box 555, Nanyuki, Kenya. Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA. ; Mpala Research Centre, Post Office Box 555, Nanyuki, Kenya. ; Mpala Research Centre, Post Office Box 555, Nanyuki, Kenya. Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA. ; Mpala Research Centre, Post Office Box 555, Nanyuki, Kenya. Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA. ; School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Scottsville, South Africa. ; Mpala Research Centre, Post Office Box 555, Nanyuki, Kenya. Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London, UK. ; Mpala Research Centre, Post Office Box 555, Nanyuki, Kenya. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25324387" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
*Acacia
;
Animals
;
*Antelopes
;
*Canidae
;
*Food Chain
;
Geographic Information Systems
;
*Herbivory
;
*Panthera
;
*Predatory Behavior
;
*Trees
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
Permalink
