Academic Journal
Are Wild Prey Sufficient for the Top Predators in the Lowland Protected Areas of Nepal?
| العنوان: | Are Wild Prey Sufficient for the Top Predators in the Lowland Protected Areas of Nepal? |
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| المؤلفون: | Lamichhane, Saneer, Pathak, Abhinaya, Gurung, Aasish, Karki, Ajay, Rayamajhi, Trishna, Khatiwada, Ambika Prasad, Mintz, Jeffrey, Niroula, Sudip Raj, Pokharel, Chiranjibi Prasad |
| المصدر: | Ecology and Evolution ; volume 14, issue 10 ; ISSN 2045-7758 2045-7758 |
| بيانات النشر: | Wiley |
| سنة النشر: | 2024 |
| المجموعة: | Wiley Online Library (Open Access Articles via Crossref) |
| الوصف: | A balanced equilibrium between carnivores and their prey is crucial for maintaining ecosystem sustainability. In this study, we applied the predator–prey power law equation to assess the balance between the biomass densities of carnivores and their wild prey within Nepal's lowland protected areas during 2013, 2018, and 2022. The estimated value of the power law exponent k for predator–prey biomass was 0.71 (95% CI = 0.39–1.05), indicating an approximate threefold increase in predator biomass density for every fivefold increase in prey biomass density. Consequently, this creates a systematically bottom‐heavy predator–prey biomass pyramid. This finding, consistent with the k = 3/4 trophic biomass scaling across ecosystems, suggests that predator biomass is proportionally sustained by prey biomass, indicating a balance between top predators and their wild prey in Nepal's lowland protected areas. We further demonstrated it is possible to retain the overall power law exponent while jointly measuring intraguild competition between two predators with canonical correlation analysis. This understanding opens avenues for future research directed toward unraveling the factors that drive these consistent growth patterns in ecological communities. |
| نوع الوثيقة: | article in journal/newspaper |
| اللغة: | English |
| DOI: | 10.1002/ece3.70387 |
| الاتاحة: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.70387 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ece3.70387 |
| Rights: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| رقم الانضمام: | edsbas.4B900686 |
| قاعدة البيانات: | BASE |
| DOI: | 10.1002/ece3.70387 |
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