Loss of Large Predators Caused Widespread Disruption of Ecosystems

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=121020&org=NSF&from=news

Press Release 11-141

Loss of Large Predators Caused Widespread Disruption of Ecosystems

Decline of "top consumers" may be humans' most pervasive influence on natural world

July 14, 2011

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According to lead author James Estes, a marine ecologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, large animals were once ubiquitous across the globe. They shaped the structure and dynamics of ecosystems.

Their decline, largely caused by humans through hunting and habitat fragmentation, has far-reaching and often surprising consequences, including changes in vegetation, wildfire frequency, infectious diseases, invasive species, water quality and nutrient cycles.

Plummeting numbers of apex consumers are most pronounced among the big predators, such as wolves on land, sharks in the oceans, and large fish in freshwater ecosystems. There also are dramatic declines in populations of many large herbivores, such as elephants and bison.

The loss of apex consumers from an ecosystem triggers an ecological phenomenon known as a "trophic cascade," a chain of effects moving down through lower levels of the food chain.

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[TheWraith]

1. This is why I get pissed when I see people hunting coyotes.

We have severe deer overpopulation around here, largely because we killed most of the predators. So now we're going to finish the job, and make our other pest animal problems worse.

[Kali]

2. coyotes aren't apex predators

and they are adaptive, plentiful and expanding their ranges

they aren't going to be finished off any time soon, no real need to worry about them in the sense of other large predators