Apex predator

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Apex predator

Apex predators (also alpha predators, superpredators, or top-level predators) are predators that, as adults, are not normally preyed upon in the wild by other large animals in significant parts of their range. Apex predator species are often at the end of long food chains, where they have a crucial role in maintaining the health of ecosystems.

Definition
An apex predator is one that has virtually no predators of its own, residing at the top of its food chain (Note: Predation in its zoological sense is the killing and consumption of another organism, which excludes bacteria and parasites from the apex predator concept.

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Encyclopedia

Definition

An apex predator is one that has virtually no predators of its own, residing at the top of its food chain (Note: Predation in its zoological sense is the killing and consumption of another organism, which excludes bacteria and parasites from the apex predator concept. Predation has been used in this context since 1932.) The apex predator concept is commonly applied in wildlife management and conservation, as well as eco-tourism. In these contexts it has been defined in terms of trophic levels. Trophic levels are "hierarchical strata of a food web characterized by organisms which are the same number of steps removed from the primary producers

Foundation species

In ecology, a foundation species is a dominant primary producer in an ecosystem both in terms of abundance and influence. Examples include kelp in kelp forests and corals in coral reefs....
." Primary, secondary, tertiary, and higher level consumers occupy successive trophic levels. One study of marine food webs defined apex predators as greater than trophic level four.

Food chains are often far shorter on land, with the top of the food chain limited to the third trophic level, as where such predators as the big cat

Big cat

The term big cat is used to distinguish the larger Felidae species from smaller ones. One definition of big cat includes only the four species of cat in the genus Panthera: the tiger, lion, leopard, and jaguar....
s, crocodilians, hyena

Hyena

The Hyaenidae is a mammalian family of order Carnivora. The Hyaenidae family, native to both African and Asian continents consists of four living species, the Striped Hyena and Brown Hyena , the Spotted Hyena and the Aardwolf ....
s, wolves, or giant constrictor snakes prey upon large herbivores. Such also applies to such omnivores as grizzly bear

Grizzly Bear

The grizzly bear ', also known as the silvertip bear, is a subspecies of brown bear ' that lives in the uplands of western North America....
s and human

Human

A human being, also human or man, is a member of a species of bipedalism primates in the family Hominidae . Mitochondrial DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago....
s that eat considerable vegetable material as well as much meat but are not themselves prey in most of their range.

Ecological role

See also Mesopredator release hypothesis
Mesopredator release hypothesis

The Mesopredator Release Hypothesis is a relatively new hypothesis which describes the phenomenon of tropic cascade in certain terrestrial ecological community....
.

Apex predators affect prey species' population dynamics. Where two competing species are in an ecologically unstable relationship, apex predators tend to create stability if they prey upon both. Inter-predator relationships are also affected by apex status. Non-native fish, for example, have been known to devastate formerly dominant predators. One lake manipulation study found that when the non-native smallmouth bass

Smallmouth bass

The smallmouth bass is a species of freshwater fish in the sunfish family of order Perciformes. It is the type species of its genus. One of the black basses, it is a popular gamefish sought by anglers throughout the temperate zones of North America, and has been spread by stock to many cool-water rivers and lakes in the United States an...
was removed, lake trout

Lake trout

Lake trout is a freshwater Salvelinus living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, lake char , touladi, togue, and grey trout....
, the suppressed native apex predator, diversified its prey selection and increased its trophic level.

Effects on wider ecosystem characteristics, such as plant ecology

Ecology

Ecology is the science study of the distribution and Abundance of life and the interactions between organisms and their nature environment ....
, have been debated, but there is evidence of a significant impact by apex predators: introduced arctic fox

Arctic fox

The Arctic Fox , also known as the White Fox or Snow Fox, is a small fox native to cold Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and is common throughout the Tundra#Arctic tundra biome....
es, for example, have been shown to turn subarctic islands from grassland

Grassland

Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants . However, sedge and rush families can also be found....
into tundra

Tundra

In physical geography, tundra is an biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes from Kildin Sami tund?r, which means "uplands, treeless mountain tract." There are two types of tundra: Arctic tundra and alpine tundra....
through predation on seabird

Seabird

Seabirds are birds that have adaptation to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behavior and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding ecological niche have resulted in similar adaptations....
s. Such wide-ranging effects on lower levels of an ecosystem are termed trophic cascade

Trophic cascade

Trophic cascades occur when predators in a food web suppress the abundance of their prey, thereby releasing the next lower trophic level from predation ....
s. The removal of top-level predators—often through human agency—can radically cause (or disrupt) trophic cascades. A commonly cited example of apex predators affecting an ecosystem is Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress as a national park on March 1, 1872, is located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, though it also extends into Montana and Idaho....
. After the reintroduction of the gray wolf

Gray Wolf

The grey wolf or gray wolf , also known as the timber wolf or simply wolf, is the largest wild member of the Canidae family. It is an ice age survivor originating during the Late Pleistocene around 300,000 years ago....
in 1995, researchers noticed drastic changes occurring in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Greater Yellowstone is the last remaining large, nearly intact ecosystem in the northern temperate zone of the Earth and is partly located in Yellowstone National Park....
. Elk, the primary prey of the gray wolf, became less abundant and changed their behavior, freeing riparian zones from constant grazing. The respite allowed willows and aspens to grow, creating habitat for beaver

Beaver

Beavers are two primarily nocturnal, semi-aquatic species of rodent, one native to North America and one to Eurasia. They are known for building dams, canals, and lodges ....
, moose

Moose

File:Alces alces NA.svgThe moose or elk , , is the largest Extant taxon species in the deer family . Moose are distinguished by the palmate antlers of the males; other members of the family have antlers with a "twig-like" configuration....
, and scores of other species. In addition to the effects on prey species, the gray wolf's presence also affected the park's grizzly bear

Grizzly Bear

The grizzly bear ', also known as the silvertip bear, is a subspecies of brown bear ' that lives in the uplands of western North America....
population. The bears, emerging from hibernation, chose to scavenge off wolf kills to gain needed energy and fatten up after fasting for months. Dozens of other species have been documented scavenging off wolf kills also.