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11 summaries matching “cougar” in Predator-Prey Dynamics
An analysis of mountain lion predation upon mule deer and elk in the Idaho Primitive Area
PaperHornocker'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
Cougar kill rate and prey composition in a multiprey system
PaperKnopff 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
Desert Puma: Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation of an Enduring Carnivore
ReviewLogan 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
Estimating cougar predation rates from GPS location clusters
PaperAnderson 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
Linking a cougar decline, trophic cascade, and catastrophic regime shift in Zion
PaperRipple 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
Research overview: compensatory versus additive puma predation on deer
OverviewAn overview of the long-running question of whether cougar predation adds to or merely substitutes for other deer mortality. If predation is compensatory, cats mainly take individuals that would have…
Research overview: cougar predation impacts on endangered prey
OverviewAn overview of cases where puma predation, though ecologically natural, poses risks to endangered or reintroduced prey populations. Examples include predation on woodland caribou, bighorn sheep, and r…
Research overview: cougar-mediated effects on riparian vegetation via deer
OverviewA survey of evidence that cougars can indirectly shape streamside plant communities by limiting and frightening deer. Where cougars are abundant, reduced and more wary deer browse cottonwoods, willows…
Research overview: puma predation on bighorn sheep
OverviewA survey of how cougar predation can threaten small and recovering populations of desert and mountain bighorn sheep. Although bighorn are not preferred prey, individual pumas can specialize on sheep,…
Research overview: puma-deer population dynamics in western North America
OverviewAn 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…
Research overview: trophic cascades initiated by apex felids
OverviewAn 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…