Sentences with phrase «top predators»
"Top predators" refers to the animals that are at the highest level of the food chain and have few to no natural predators. They are typically strong and skilled hunters that prey on other animals, helping maintain balance in the ecosystem. Full definition
They also call for more research comparing the ecological role of top predators on the edge of their geographic range, especially in human - modified environments.
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The new evidence that they do underscores their position as top predators that can kill almost any other marine mammal given the chance.
Like other top predators such as tuna, they are considered the primary source of mercury in humans.
Wolves and other top predators need large ranges to be able to control smaller predators whose populations have expanded to the detriment of a balanced ecosystem.
The dramatic impact on ecosystems of losing top predators is well known.
With top predators such as cod and tuna disappearing, seas will be increasingly dominated by organisms lower in the food chain.
But she says her results do raise questions about the strategy of trying to kill top predators off while ignoring rats.
The resulting stealth and fear dynamics — and the relationship between top predators and their prey — have profound ecological implications.
The results, though preliminary, could help explain how top predators keep the food chains beneath them in balance.
The results add a new piece to the puzzle of how these bone - crushing top predators evolved over millions of years.
I am particularly interested in how humans and top predators shape and drive ecosystem processes.
He and his colleagues have shown that the removal of top predators can cause dramatic shifts within ecosystems.
These findings point to a general severe depletion of top predators in the basin, including Atlantic bluefin tuna, which is considered critically endangered according to the declining trend observed in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean in the last 50 years.
Ecologists document the negative ripple effects of removing top predators from ecosystems.
A longer food chain for top predators such as polar bears, belugas and walruses means they would be more highly exposed to mercury, since it magnifies each step up.
Removing top predators like white sharks from ecosystems causes a cascade of bad consequences for the health of the ecosystems and local economies.
A variety of organisms can be found on and around the Channel Islands, from top predators like bald eagles and sharks, to intertidal residents such as seastars and barnaces, to the tiniest parasites living on other animals and plants.
The McLaren P1 is one of the hottest models that the company has ever created, competing against top predators on the market such as the Porsche 918 Spyder or the Koenigsegg One: 1, and being spotted numerous times wearing special body colors.
The best known member of these species: the late Cretaceous» Tyrannosaurus rex, a 12 - meter (40 foot) long top predator of its time.
The effect will not always be to increase emissions, however: they may sometimes fall when top predators disappear, according to modelling Atwood carried out alongside the experiments.
While scientists have long - known that predators lead to carbon storage by reducing herbivore populations, a new study reveals a novel way in which top predators cause an ecosystem to store more carbon.
A healthy unfished reef is inhabited by top predators like sharks and grouper and total fish biomass is roughly 500 grams per square meter.
In her research, she has found that people who eat top predator fish like shark, swordfish and marlin have more mercury in their blood but not necessarily more omega 3's and selenium — a nutrient that is abundant in fish — than people who eat seafood that is lower on the food chain, like sardines, shellfish, anchovies and herring.
This data is crucial to the sustainment of the dive tourism in the area and also includes a shark specific module which will give you a new found respect for the oceans top predator.
«There's no other system in the world where top predators support human communities the ways these species do,» Laidre said.
Given that top predators feed on giant octopuses, this may be an important way of channelling energy from the bottom to the top of the oceanic food chain, his team argues.
He points out that land managers are already doing so, less systematically, by running regulated hunting of prey species in areas where top predators have been extirpated.
«A new top predator has entered the Northeast and has strong impact on the ecosystem,» Levi said in a statement.
In addition, unlike many other krill - eating top predators in the Antarctic, such as whales and fur seals, they were not hunted by humans,» said Dr. Trivelpiece.
«Large - mouthed fish was top predator after mass extinction.»
«Our paper suggests it will require managing for top predator persistence across large landscapes, rather than just in protected areas, in order to restore natural predator - predator interactions,» said co-author Aaron Wirsing, an associate professor at the University of Washington's School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.
«In modern times, there are few other places in the world where wild top predators support humans,» Laidre notes.
A study shows that parasites can make up three percent of an ecosystem's biomass — and even outweigh the so - called top predators.
But as the wolves proliferated, they came in direct conflict with the true top predator in the area — humans.
«Killer whale genetics: Redefining stock structure in a marine top predator.»
«This is yet another example of the hugely important and sometimes unexpected roles that top predators play in ecosystems,» says Todd Palmer, an ecologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville who was not involved with the work.
University of Wisconsin researchers recently found that mercury added to a lake reached top predators faster than the mercury that already existed in their environment.
By opting for anchovies and their ilk, say, rather than species like swordfish, Christensen says, consumers could take some pressure off of the declining top predators.
The remaining top predators gained a more powerful keystone role, and plant distribution again adapted to new herbivory patterns.
«In the absence of the usual top predator for lodgepole pines, the red squirrels that are superior competitors for the lodgepole pine seeds, the South Hills crossbill became the prime harvester of pine cone seeds,» Parchman said.
Small fish feed on contaminated plants, and bigger fish feed on those smaller fish, until top predators — such as shark, swordfish and mackerel — are practically brimming with methylmercury, a form of the metal that's readily absorbed into the body.
They vied with theropod dinosaurs for top predator slots and succeeded — for a time.
Overall they were dwarfed by their relatives the pliosaurs, the unquestioned top predators of the Mesozoic seas.
That means that when you move towards smaller island size, you run out of top predators before you run out of intermediate predators, and that you lose the last plant - eaters before you lose the last plant.»
Atwood and her team tested the idea in Canada and Costa Rica by temporarily removing fish and insect top predators from ponds, streams and tiny wet ecosystems associated with bromeliad plants.
«Disastrous events like this oil spill can easily tip the scale,» Mansur says, especially by threatening top predators such as the Sundarbans tigers, crocodiles, and dolphins.
We gradually added top predators to a lake over 3 years to destabilize its food web.
«The lack of biomagnification also means that we are unlikely to see sudden unexpected increases in concentrations of the CUPs in terrestrial top predators,» he said.