Paws without claws? Ecological effects of large carnivores in anthropogenic landscapes

Paws without claws? Ecological effects of large carnivores in anthropogenic landscapes.

Large carnivores are frequently presented as saviours of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning through their creation of trophic cascades, an idea largely based on studies coming primarily out of relatively natural landscapes. However, in large parts of the world, particularly in Europe, large carnivores live in and are returning to strongly human-modified ecosystems. At present, we lack a coh...

Paws, claws, loving companions: pet therapy and children.

Status and ecological effects of the world's largest carnivores.

Large carnivores face serious threats and are experiencing massive declines in their populations and geographic ranges around the world. We highlight how these threats have affected the conservation status and ecological functioning of the 31 largest mammalian carnivores on Earth. Consistent with theory, empirical studies increasingly show that large carnivores have substantial effects on the s...

Anthropogenic Effects in Landscapes: Historical Context and Spatial Pattern

Bio-cultural landscapes are characterized by anthropogenic pattern features, of which the measurement constitutes a key step in landscape analysis. Metrics and strategies for this measurement of anthropogenic patterns and their dynamics are discussed, considering the pattern/process paradigm, the patchcorridor-matrix model and the complementarity of landscape composition and configuration as co...

Ecological drivers of antipredator defenses in carnivores.

Mammals have evolved several morphological and behavioral adaptations to reduce the risk of predation, but we know little about the ecological factors that favor their evolution. For example, some mammalian carnivores have the ability to spray noxious anal secretions in defense, whereas other species lack such weaponry but may instead rely on collective vigilance characteristic of cohesive soci...