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Trophic cascades are powerful indirect interactions that can control entire ecosystems, occurring when a trophic level in a food web is suppressed. For example, a top-down cascade will occur if predators are effective enough in predation to reduce the abundance, or alter the behavior of their prey, thereby releasing the next lower trophic level from predation (or herbivory if the intermediate ...
The green world hypothesis proposes that predators are the primary regulators of ecosystems: they are the reason the world is 'green', by regulating the herbivores that would otherwise consume all the greenery. [1] [2] It is also known as the HSS hypothesis, after Hairston, Smith and Slobodkin, the authors of the seminal paper on the subject. [3]
In his 1966 paper, Food Web Complexity and Species Diversity, Paine had described such a system in Makah Bay in Washington. [4] In his 1969 paper, Paine proposed the keystone species concept, using Pisaster ochraceus, a species of starfish generally known as ochre starfish, and Mytilus californianus, a species of mussel, as a primary example. [1]
An ecosystem engineer is any species that creates, significantly modifies, maintains or destroys a habitat. These organisms can have a large impact on species richness and landscape-level heterogeneity of an area. [1] As a result, ecosystem engineers are important for maintaining the health and stability of the environment they are living in.
Three free-ranging herds are managed by state wildlife agencies in Utah and Alaska. [22] Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks began researching re-establishing wild populations in 2010. [ 92 ] [ 93 ] The plan, which laid the groundwork for wild bison reintroduction without specifying any particular site or plan for a herd, was published in January ...
California’s eco-bureaucrats halted a wildfire prevention project near the Pacific Palisades to protect an endangered shrub. It’s just the latest clash between fire safety and conservation in ...
Huffaker’s experimental universes showed that while under many circumstances predator–prey interactions will lead to extinction of both populations, interactions of spatial heterogeneity, dispersal ability of predator and prey species, and distribution of food sources can create an environment in which predator and prey species can coexist.
A freshwater aquatic food web. The blue arrows show a complete food chain (algae → daphnia → gizzard shad → largemouth bass → great blue heron). A food web is the natural interconnection of food chains and a graphical representation of what-eats-what in an ecological community.