Examining the prey mass of terrestrial and aquatic carnivorous mammals: minimum, maximum and range.

ABSTRACT: Predator-prey body mass relationships are a vital part of food webs across ecosystems and provide key information for predicting the susceptibility of carnivore populations to extinction. Despite this, there has been limited research on the minimum and maximum prey size of mammalian carnivores. Without information on large-scale patterns of prey mass, we limit our understanding of predation pressure, trophic cascades and susceptibility of carnivores to decreasing prey populations. The majority of studies that examine predator-prey body mass relationships focus on either a single or a subset of mammalian species, which limits the strength of our models as well as their broader application. We examine the relationship between predator body mass and the minimum, maximum and range of their pre

SUBMITTER: Tucker MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4146607 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature