Bowler et al. (2020) Impacts of predator-mediated interactions along a climatic gradient on the population dynamics of an alpine bird. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 287, https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2653.

The Crux

Whether or not a species will survive in an area can usually be broken down into two broad categories: how suitable the environmental characteristics of that area are (temperature, elevation, rainfall), and how it interacts with the other species found nearby. Early ecological theory predicted that in harsh environments, how a species interacts with other species wouldn’t matter as much, and would only come into play when the area was easier for the species to inhabit.

Yet more modern work often contradicts this theory. For instance, the Alternative Prey Hypothesis (APH) suggests that in areas where there are relatively few species as a result of harsh climates, interactions between those few species will be relatively strong. For example, if a prey species declines one year, then its usual predator must find an alternative prey species. This creates an indirect interaction between the two prey species, which is particularly strong in harsh environments where there aren’t other species around.

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