Abbreviated Journal Title
Ecology
Keywords
alternative prey; Canada lynx; lepus americanus; lynx canadensis; population cycles; snowshoe hare; specialist/generalist predation; hypothesis; stable isotope ratios.; TEMPORAL VARIABILITY; STABLE ISOTOPES; CARBON ISOTOPES; SNOWSHOE HARES; 10-YEAR CYCLE; RED SQUIRRELS; PREDATION; PATTERNS; NITROGEN; EXPLANATION; Ecology
Abstract
Geographical gradients in the stability of cyclic populations of herbivores and their predators may relate to the degree of specialization of predators. However, such changes are usually associated with transition from specialist to generalist predator species, rather than from geographical variation in dietary breadth of specialist predators. Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) and snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) populations undergo cyclic. fluctuations in northern parts of their range, but cycles are either greatly attenuated or lost altogether in the southern boreal forest where prey diversity is higher. We tested the influence of prey specialization on population cycles by measuring the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in lynx and their prey, estimating the contribution of hares to lynx diet across their range, and correlating this degree of specialization to the strength of their population cycles. Hares dominated the lynx diet across their range, but specialization on hares decreased in southern and western populations. The degree of specialization correlated with cyclic signal strength indicated by spectral analysis of lynx harvest data, but overall variability of lynx harvest (the standard deviation of natural-log-transformed harvest numbers) did not change significantly with dietary specialization. Thus, as alternative prey became more important in the lynx diet, the fluctuations became decoupled from a regular cycle but did not become less variable. Our results support the hypothesis that alternative prey decrease population cycle regularity but emphasize that such changes may be driven by dietary shifts among dominant specialist predators rather than exclusively through changes in the predator community.
Journal Title
Ecology
Volume
88
Issue/Number
11
Publication Date
1-1-2007
Document Type
Article
DOI Link
Language
English
First Page
2736
Last Page
2743
WOS Identifier
ISSN
0012-9658
Recommended Citation
Roth, James D.; Marshall, John D.; Murray, Dennis L.; Nickerson, David M.; and Steury, Todd D., "Geographical gradients in diet affect population dynamics of Canada lynx" (2007). Faculty Bibliography 2000s. 7587.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/facultybib2000/7587
Comments
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