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Mammalian mesopredators on islands directly impact both terrestrial and marine communities

  • Community ecology - Original research
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Abstract

Medium-sized mammalian predators (i.e. mesopredators) on islands are known to have devastating effects on the abundance and diversity of terrestrial vertebrates. Mesopredators are often highly omnivorous, and on islands, may have access not only to terrestrial prey, but to marine prey as well, though impacts of mammalian mesopredators on marine communities have rarely been considered. Large apex predators are likely to be extirpated or absent on islands, implying a lack of top-down control of mesopredators that, in combination with high food availability from terrestrial and marine sources, likely exacerbates their impacts on island prey. We exploited a natural experiment—the presence or absence of raccoons (Procyon lotor) on islands in the Gulf Islands, British Columbia, Canada—to investigate the impacts that this key mesopredator has on both terrestrial and marine prey in an island system from which all native apex predators have been extirpated. Long-term monitoring of song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) nests showed raccoons to be the predominant nest predator in the Gulf Islands. To identify their community-level impacts, we surveyed the distribution of raccoons across 44 Gulf Islands, and then compared terrestrial and marine prey abundances on six raccoon-present and six raccoon-absent islands. Our results demonstrate significant negative effects of raccoons on terrestrial, intertidal, and shallow subtidal prey abundance, and point to additional community-level effects through indirect interactions. Our findings show that mammalian mesopredators not only affect terrestrial prey, but that, on islands, their direct impacts extend to the surrounding marine community.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the numerous field crews that assisted in collecting the camera data concerning raccoon predation on song sparrow nests, and in particular M. C. Allen, M. Travers and A. F. White. A. Currie, T. Diesch and D. Hope provided field assistance in the Gulf Islands, and we thank J. Sibbald for assistance in Clayoquot Sound. Thanks to Parks Canada, BC Parks and the owners of Coal, Domville, James, Moresby and Mowgli islands for access to the sites; and T. Golumbia and B. Clinchy for their support. Two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on the manuscript. Funding was provided by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery grants to M. C., L. Y. Z. and L. M. D., in addition to a Premier’s Research Excellence Award and Canada Foundation for Innovation grant to L. Y. Z. This work was approved by the Animal Care Committees of the University of Western Ontario and University of Victoria and conforms to the legal requirements of Canada.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Victoria, P.O. Box 1700, Station CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 2Y2, Canada

    Justin P. Suraci, Michael Clinchy & Christopher M. A. Currie

  2. Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Sidney, BC, V8L 3Y3, Canada

    Justin P. Suraci

  3. Department of Biology, Western University, London, ON, N6A 5B7, Canada

    Liana Y. Zanette

  4. Department of Biological Sciences, Evolutionary and Behavioural Ecology Research Group, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada

    Lawrence M. Dill

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  1. Justin P. Suraci
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Correspondence to Justin P. Suraci.

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Communicated by Christopher N. Johnson.

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Suraci, J.P., Clinchy, M., Zanette, L.Y. et al. Mammalian mesopredators on islands directly impact both terrestrial and marine communities. Oecologia 176, 1087–1100 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-3085-5

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