Facilitation or Competition? Effects of Lions on Brown Hyaenas and Leopards
1
Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Pretoria 0028, South Africa
2
Centre for Invasion Biology, Eugène Marais Chair of Wildlife Management, Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Pretoria 0028, South Africa
3
Department of Zoology, University of Venda, Private Bag X5050, Thohoyandou 0950, South Africa
4
Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden
5
Research Unit of Biodiversity (UMIB, UO-CSIC-PA), Campus Mieres, Edificio de Investigación, 33600 Mieres, Spain
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Diversity 2020, 12(9), 325; https://doi.org/10.3390/d12090325
Received: 24 July 2020 / Revised: 21 August 2020 / Accepted: 25 August 2020 / Published: 26 August 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research in Carnivores: From Their Interspecific Relationships to Their Prey)
Intra-guild interactions related to facilitation and competition can be strong forces structuring ecological communities and have been suggested as particularly prominent for large carnivores. The African lion (Panthera leo) is generally thought to be a dominant predator where it occurs and can be expected to have broad effects on sympatric carnivore communities. We used data from two small game reserves in northern South Africa to relate the presence of African lions to abundance, habitat use, diet, and prey selection of two sympatric large carnivores, brown hyaenas (Parahyaena brunnea) and leopards (Panthera pardus). Our results offered some support for the facilitative effects of lions on brown hyaenas, and competitive effects on leopards. However, differences between populations living without and with lions were restricted to broad diet composition and appear not to have permeated into differences in either prey selection, abundance or habitat use. Therefore, we suggest that the potential effects of lions on the predator–prey interactions of sympatric predators may have been context dependent or absent, and subsequently argue that lions may not necessarily influence the predator–prey dynamics in the landscapes they live in beyond those caused by their own predatory behaviour.
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Keywords:
community ecology; predation; interference competition; landscape of fear; apex predator; Carnivora; African lion; African leopard; brown hyaena
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MDPI and ACS Style
Bashant, J.; Somers, M.; Swanepoel, L.; Dalerum, F. Facilitation or Competition? Effects of Lions on Brown Hyaenas and Leopards. Diversity 2020, 12, 325. https://doi.org/10.3390/d12090325
AMA Style
Bashant J, Somers M, Swanepoel L, Dalerum F. Facilitation or Competition? Effects of Lions on Brown Hyaenas and Leopards. Diversity. 2020; 12(9):325. https://doi.org/10.3390/d12090325
Chicago/Turabian StyleBashant, Janelle; Somers, Michael; Swanepoel, Lourens; Dalerum, Fredrik. 2020. "Facilitation or Competition? Effects of Lions on Brown Hyaenas and Leopards" Diversity 12, no. 9: 325. https://doi.org/10.3390/d12090325
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