Limitation of African wild dogs by competition with larger carnivores

Creel and Creel demonstrated that African wild dog populations are limited not by prey scarcity but by competition with lions and spotted hyenas, which kill dogs and steal their kills. Analyzing demography and interactions across sites, they showed wild dog density declines where lion and hyena densities are high, through kleptoparasitism that raises foraging costs and direct mortality of adults and pups. Although the focal predator is a canid, the study is a central reference for felid-driven intraguild suppression, illustrating how dominant cats structure subordinate-predator populations. It reframed wild dog conservation around competitor density and informed broader theory on how apex felids regulate carnivore communities through interference competition.