🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

A survey of the predator-prey relationship between pumas and guanacos in the steppe and mountains of Patagonia, where the guanaco is the puma's main native prey. Pumas are major predators of guanacos,…

An overview of the central predator-prey relationship between cougars and mule deer, the staple prey across much of the western United States. Puma density tends to track deer abundance, and puma pred…

A survey of how pumas create spatial gradients of perceived risk that alter where and how their ungulate prey forage. Because pumas are ambush predators favoring cover and terrain that aids stalking,…

An overview of how much carrion features in the diets of cats traditionally viewed as pure hunters. While felids are generally more reliant on fresh kills than canids or hyaenids, many will scavenge o…

An overview of how the prey cats select shifts through the year with prey vulnerability, migration, birth pulses and weather. Many felids exploit seasonal ungulate calving and fawning peaks, when abun…

An overview of how ambush felids select hunting habitat to minimize the distance over which they must close on prey undetected. Because capture success drops sharply with the length of the final rush,…

An overview of documented cases in which cats kill more prey than they can eat, extending Kruuk's classic analysis to felids. Surplus killing in cats typically occurs when normal prey escape responses…

An overview of how large cats can structure ecosystems from the top down, with effects rippling through herbivores to vegetation and beyond. By killing and frightening herbivores, apex felids such as…

Kruuk documented and analyzed cases where carnivores kill far more prey than they can consume, challenging the assumption that predators only take what they need. Drawing on spotted hyena and other ca…

Kruuk, H. · Journal of Zoology · 1972

A decade after naming the concept, Laundre, Hernandez and Ripple reviewed how the landscape of fear had matured into a framework for understanding nonconsumptive predator effects. They synthesized evi…

Laundre, J.W., Hernandez, L. & Ripple, W.J. · The Open Ecology Journal · 2010

Prugh and colleagues synthesized global evidence that the worldwide decline of apex predators has triggered widespread increases in mid-sized carnivores, with far-reaching ecological and economic cons…

Prugh, L.R., Stoner, C.J., Epps, C.W., Bean, W.T. et al. · BioScience · 2009

Estes and a large group of coauthors synthesized evidence that the loss of apex consumers, including big cats, is among humanity's most pervasive influences on nature. The review marshaled cases acros…

Estes, J.A., Terborgh, J., Brashares, J.S. et al. · Science · 2011

Wilmers and colleagues showed that reintroduced wolves in Yellowstone act as ecosystem benefactors by providing a steady, more evenly distributed supply of carrion to scavengers, buffering them agains…

Wilmers, C.C., Crabtree, R.L., Smith, D.W., Murphy, K.M. & Getz, W.M. · Journal of Animal Ecology · 2003

This paper introduced and named the landscape of fear concept, arguing that prey perceive their habitat as a spatially varying map of predation risk that shapes where and how they forage. Using elk an…

Laundre, J.W., Hernandez, L. & Altendorf, K.B. · Canadian Journal of Zoology · 2001