Impact of food and predation on the snowshoe hare cycle

This large-scale Kluane field experiment in the Yukon manipulated food (supplemental feeding) and predation (predator exclusion fencing) across replicated one-square-kilometre blocks to dissect what drives the snowshoe hare cycle that underlies lynx dynamics. Krebs and colleagues found that adding food roughly doubled hare density, excluding predators roughly tripled it, and combining both increased density elevenfold, demonstrating that predation and food act together rather than singly. The study showed the cycle is generated by an interaction between food supply and a predator community including lynx and coyotes, with sublethal predator effects on reproduction. It remains the definitive experimental dissection of one of ecology's most famous cycles.