The idea that we should live in a predator and stress free (for herbivores) has been doing the rounds again these last few days. Apart form it being a very-bad-no-good idea to remove all predators from a system its also easy to forget that herbivores can be just as big of a source of stress for other herbivores as the threat of predation.

I mean we know that herbivores sometimes order off of the meat menu (Omnomnomivores anyone?), can bully smaller species off of/away from resources, and can be a general menace to society ‘just because’. To put it simply there is always going to be something causing an individual some type of stress out there (even from their own species). Saying that predators are the problem is not a sustainable way of thinking, and is also an overly simplistic view of ‘predation’. From the view of a plant herbivores are predators are they not?

For an earlier take on when this issue cropped up last year, check out the link below.

Read More: An Attempt To Understand Painlessly Killing Predators

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Tanya Strydom is a PhD student at the Université de Montréal, mostly focusing on how we can use machine learning and artificial intelligence in ecology. Current research interests include (but are not limited to) predicting ecological networks, the role species traits and scale in ecological networks, general computer (and maths) geekiness, and a (seemingly) ever growing list of side projects. Tweets (sometimes related to actual science) can be found @TanyaS_08.