Dataset Information

Competition between sympatric wolf taxa: an example involving African and Ethiopian wolves.

ABSTRACT: Carnivore populations are declining globally due to range contraction, persecution and prey depletion. One consequence of these patterns is increased range and niche overlap with other carnivores, and thus an elevated potential for competitive exclusion. Here, we document competition between an endangered canid, the Ethiopian wolf (EW), and the newly discovered African wolf (AW) in central Ethiopia. The diet of the ecological specialist EW was dominated by rodents, whereas the AW consumed a more diverse diet also including insects and non-rodent mammals. EWs used predominantly intact habitat, whereas AWs used mostly areas disturbed by humans and their livestock. We observed 82 encounters between the two species, of which 94% were agonistic. The outcomes of agonistic encounters followed a territory-specific dominance pattern, with EWs dominating in intact habitat and AWs in human-disturbed areas. For AWs, the likelihood of winning encounters also increased with group size. Rodent species consumed by EWs were also available in the human-disturbed areas, suggesting that these areas could be suitable habitat for EWs if AWs were not present. Increasing human encroachment not only affects the prey base of EWs, but also may impact their survival by intensifying competition with sympatric AWs.

SUBMITTER: Gutema TM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5990763 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Competition between sympatric wolf taxa: an example involving African and Ethiopian wolves.

Gutema Tariku Mekonnen TM Atickem Anagaw A Bekele Afework A Sillero-Zubiri Claudio C Kasso Mohammed M Tsegaye Diress D Venkataraman Vivek V VV Fashing Peter J PJ Zinner Dietmar D Stenseth Nils C NC

Royal Society open science 20180502 5

Carnivore populations are declining globally due to range contraction, persecution and prey depletion. One consequence of these patterns is increased range and niche overlap with other carnivores, and thus an elevated potential for competitive exclusion. Here, we document competition between an endangered canid, the Ethiopian wolf (EW), and the newly discovered African wolf (AW) in central Ethiopia. The diet of the ecological specialist EW was dominated by rodents, whereas the AW consumed a more ...[more]

PMID: 29892409

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Project description:Interference competition occurs when two species have similar resource requirements and one species is dominant and can suppress or exclude the subordinate species. Wolves (Canis lupus) and coyotes (C. latrans) are sympatric across much of their range in North America where white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) can be an important prey species. We assessed the extent of niche overlap between wolves and coyotes using activity, diet, and space use as evidence for interference competition during three periods related to the availability of white-tailed deer fawns in the Upper Great Lakes region of the USA. We assessed activity overlap (Δ) with data from accelerometers onboard global positioning system (GPS) collars worn by wolves (n = 11) and coyotes (n = 13). We analyzed wolf and coyote scat to estimate dietary breadth (B) and food niche overlap (α). We used resource utilization functions (RUFs) with canid GPS location data, white-tailed deer RUFs, ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) and snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) densities, and landscape covariates to compare population-level space use. Wolves and coyotes exhibited considerable overlap in activity (Δ = 0.86-0.92), diet (B = 3.1-4.9; α = 0.76-1.0), and space use of active and inactive RUFs across time periods. Coyotes relied less on deer as prey compared to wolves and consumed greater amounts of smaller prey items. Coyotes exhibited greater population-level variation in space use compared to wolves. Additionally, while active and inactive, coyotes exhibited greater selection of some land covers as compared to wolves. Our findings lend support for interference competition between wolves and coyotes with significant overlap across resource attributes examined. The mechanisms through which wolves and coyotes coexist appear to be driven largely by how coyotes, a generalist species, exploit narrow differences in resource availability and display greater population-level plasticity in resource use.

Dataset Information

Competition between sympatric wolf taxa: an example involving African and Ethiopian wolves.

Publications

Competition between sympatric wolf taxa: an example involving African and Ethiopian wolves.

Similar Datasets

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