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Predators affect competitors’ coexistence through fear effects

Predators are often thought to structure ecological communities by consuming competitively dominant species, which promotes the coexistence of species. But an alternative mechanism might involve the effects of fear.
  1. Oswald J. Schmitz

    1. Oswald J. Schmitz is in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA.

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The Caribbean and its surrounding region harbour an incredible diversity of anole lizard species1. They come in many shapes and sizes, and occupy a variety of places in shrub and tree habitats. This separation in morphology and the use of space reflects the lizards’ varied functional roles on the island and in the mainland coastal ecosystems that they inhabit1. For example, some green, small-bodied, short-limbed species of anole occupy the canopies of shrubs and trees, nimbly traversing twigs and branches to pluck insect prey2. Other, brown anole species perch lower down on the trunks, relying on their long, stocky legs to help them jump to the ground to sprint after insects2. There are numerous theories as to how such ecological and morphological diversity arises, and in a paper in Nature, Pringle et al.3 present the results of a long-term field study into the effect of predators on anole lizards. Intriguingly, their conclusion is not one that would normally be considered in relation to the role of predators.

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Nature 570, 43-44 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01712-7

References

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