🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Carbone and Gittleman derived a simple, general rule linking carnivore population density to the productivity of the prey base, showing across species that roughly the same amount of prey biomass supp…

Carbone, C. & Gittleman, J.L. · Science · 2002

Hornocker's pioneering radio-telemetry study of cougars in central Idaho was among the first to quantify how a solitary felid affects its ungulate prey. By tracking marked lions through winters and re…

Hornocker, M.G. · Wildlife Monographs · 1970

A companion to their prey-selection study, Karanth and Sunquist examined how the hunting behavior, social organization and activity patterns of tigers, leopards and dholes in Nagarahole map onto their…

Karanth, K.U. & Sunquist, M.E. · Journal of Zoology · 2000

Building on the prey-preference series, Hayward, O'Brien and Kerley developed regression models that predict the density a reserve can support for each large African predator from the available biomas…

Hayward, M.W., O'Brien, J. & Kerley, G.I.H. · Biological Conservation · 2007

Caro's long-term Serengeti study is the definitive account of cheetah behavioral ecology, with deep treatment of hunting and predation. He quantified hunting success rates, prey selection by Thomson's…

Caro, T.M. · University of Chicago Press · 1994

Durant tested how subordinate cheetahs persist alongside dominant lions and hyenas in the Serengeti, proposing that they exploit competition refuges, places and times where the risk of encountering do…

Durant, S.M. · Journal of Animal Ecology · 1998

Trinkel and Kastberger quantified the contest over carcasses between lions and spotted hyenas in Namibia's Etosha National Park, where prey is comparatively scarce. They recorded how the outcome of co…

Trinkel, M. & Kastberger, G. · African Journal of Ecology · 2005

Stander's study in Namibia's Etosha provided rare evidence of role differentiation in lion cooperative hunting. By watching repeated hunts, he showed that individual lionesses consistently occupied pa…

Stander, P.E. · Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology · 1992

Knopff and colleagues used GPS location clusters to investigate cougar kills in Alberta, dramatically improving on snow-tracking by detecting small and warm-season prey often missed before. They estim…

Knopff, K.H., Knopff, A.A., Kortello, A. & Boyce, M.S. · Journal of Wildlife Management · 2010

Logan and Sweanor's monograph reports a decade-long study of pumas in New Mexico's San Andres Mountains, one of the most thorough investigations of cougar population and predation ecology. It document…

Logan, K.A. & Sweanor, L.L. · Island Press · 2001

Andheria, Karanth and Kumar quantified the diets of tiger, leopard and dhole in southern India's Bandipur Tiger Reserve using scat analysis combined with prey-availability data. They documented how th…

Andheria, A.P., Karanth, K.U. & Kumar, N.S. · Journal of Zoology · 2007

Donadio and Buskirk tested what predicts the intensity of interactions among carnivores, including both killing and avoidance. Analyzing a broad dataset, they found that intraguild predation and aggre…

Donadio, E. & Buskirk, S.W. · The American Naturalist · 2006

Terborgh and colleagues exploited a natural experiment created by a Venezuelan hydroelectric reservoir that isolated land-bridge islands lacking large predators such as jaguars and pumas. On predator-…

Terborgh, J., Lopez, L., Nunez, P. et al. · Science · 2001

Anderson and Lindzey developed and validated a method to estimate cougar kill rates by identifying spatial clusters of GPS locations and field-checking them for carcasses, then modeling which clusters…

Anderson, C.R. & Lindzey, F.G. · Wildlife Society Bulletin · 2003

Foster and colleagues compared the diets of jaguars and pumas in Belize using scat analysis along a gradient of human disturbance. They found the two big cats partition prey to some degree, with jagua…

Foster, R.J., Harmsen, B.J., Valkenburgh, B., Doncaster, C.P. · Journal of Zoology · 2010

Van Orsdol provided detailed measurements of lion hunting success in Uganda, relating capture rates to prey species, group size, habitat cover and time of day. He found that success was higher at nigh…

Van Orsdol, K.G. · African Journal of Ecology · 1984

Jedrzejewski and colleagues studied Eurasian lynx predation in Poland's Bialowieza Forest, quantifying kill rates, prey selection and the lynx's contribution to roe deer and red deer mortality. They f…

Jedrzejewski, W., Schmidt, K., Milkowski, L., Jedrzejewska, B. & Okarma, H. · Acta Theriologica · 1993

The companion to their numerical-response study, this paper measured how the kill rate of individual lynx and coyotes changed with snowshoe hare density across the Kluane cycle. O'Donoghue and colleag…

O'Donoghue, M., Boutin, S., Krebs, C.J., Zuleta, G., Murray, D.L. & Hofer, E.J. · Ecology · 1998

Scheel and Packer analyzed Serengeti lion hunts to test whether group hunting reflects true cooperation or individuals each maximizing their own success. They found that hunting success increased with…

Scheel, D. & Packer, C. · Animal Behaviour · 1991

Funston, Mills and Biggs challenged the stereotype that male lions are merely scavengers reliant on females' kills. Working in Kruger National Park, they showed that male lions hunt effectively, parti…

Funston, P.J., Mills, M.G.L. & Biggs, H.C. · Journal of Zoology · 2001

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 d…

Krebs, C.J., Boutin, S., Boonstra, R., Sinclair, A.R.E. et al. · Science · 1995

Palomares and Caro compiled and analyzed the global record of carnivores killing other carnivores, establishing intraguild predation as a widespread structuring force. They showed that interspecific k…

Palomares, F. & Caro, T.M. · The American Naturalist · 1999

Radloff and Du Toit analyzed the southern African large-carnivore guild to show that a predator's body mass sets both the average and the upper limit of the prey sizes it takes. Larger predators such…

Radloff, F.G.T. & Du Toit, J.T. · Journal of Animal Ecology · 2004

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 demog…

Creel, S. & Creel, N.M. · Conservation Biology · 1996

Ripple and Beschta documented a striking felid-driven trophic cascade by contrasting heavily visited Zion Canyon, where human presence depressed cougars, with a nearby low-visitation canyon where coug…

Ripple, W.J. & Beschta, R.L. · Biological Conservation · 2006

Bagchi and Mishra studied snow leopard diet and livestock depredation in India's Spiti region, linking the cat's reliance on wild prey to its use of domestic stock. Through scat analysis they showed t…

Bagchi, S. & Mishra, C. · Journal of Zoology · 2006

In this follow-up, Durant used experimental playbacks and detailed observation to show that Serengeti cheetahs actively avoid lions and spotted hyenas at fine spatial and temporal scales, moving away…

Durant, S.M. · Behavioral Ecology · 2000

This influential study coined the practical demonstration of mesopredator release, showing that the decline of a dominant predator can unleash smaller predators with cascading harm to prey. In fragmen…

Crooks, K.R. & Soule, M.E. · Nature · 1999

Part of the Kluane Boreal Forest Ecosystem Project, this study tracked how lynx and coyote densities changed across a full snowshoe hare cycle. O'Donoghue and colleagues documented strong numerical re…

O'Donoghue, M., Boutin, S., Krebs, C.J. & Hofer, E.J. · Ecology · 1997

Cooper examined why lions live in groups by testing whether larger groups better retain their kills against kleptoparasitic spotted hyenas. Observations showed that single or paired lions frequently l…

Cooper, S.M. · African Journal of Ecology · 1991