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Competition

Competition

When organisms require the same limited resources within an environment, they may have to compete for them. Competition is a net-negative interaction. Even if two competing individuals or populations do not interact directly, the overall fitness of both competitors is lowered as a result of not having full access to the limited resource.

Predator-Prey Interactions

Predator-Prey Interactions

Predators consume prey for energy. Predators that acquire prey and prey that avoid predation both increase their chances of survival and reproduction (i.e., fitness). Routine predator-prey interactions elicit mutual adaptations that improve predator offenses, such as claws, teeth, and speed, as well as prey defenses, including crypsis, aposematism, and mimicry. Thus, predator-prey interactions resemble an evolutionary arms race.

Migration

Migration

Migration is long-range, seasonal movement from one region or habitat to another. This common strategy, carried out by many different organisms around the world, is an adaptive response that typically corresponds to changes in an organism’s environment, like resource availability or climate. Migrations can involve huge groups of thousands of animals as well as single individuals traveling alone and can range from thousands of kilometers to just a few hundred meters.

Habitat Fragmentation

Habitat Fragmentation

Habitat fragmentation describes the division of a more extensive, continuous habitat into smaller, discontinuous areas. Human activities such as land conversion, as well as slower geological processes leading to changes in the physical environment, are the two leading causes of habitat fragmentation. The fragmentation process typically follows the same steps: perforation, dissection, fragmentation, shrinkage, and attrition.

Conservation of Small Populations

Conservation of Small Populations

Small population sizes put a species at extreme risk of extinction due to a lack of variation, and a consequent decrease in adaptability. This weakens the chances of survival under pressures such as climate change, competition from other species, or new diseases. Large populations are more likely to survive pressures such as these, as such populations are more likely to harbor individuals that have genetic variants that are adaptive under new stresses. Small populations are much less...

Symbiosis

Symbiosis

Symbiotic relationships are long-term, close interactions between individuals of different species that affect the distribution and abundance of those species. When a relationship is beneficial to both species, this is called mutualism. When the relationship is beneficial to one species but neither beneficial nor harmful to the other species, this is called commensalism. When one organism is harmed to benefit another, the relationship is known as parasitism. These types of relationships often...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Sep 19, 2025

A Real-Time Interactive System for Studying Confrontational Pursuit Behavior in Rodents

A Real-Time Interactive System for Studying Confrontational Pursuit Behavior in Rodents

Published on: May 16, 2025

Intraguild competition mediates human avoidance in an endangered African large carnivore.

Briana Abrahms^1,2, Kasim Rafiq^1,2, Anna C Nisi¹

¹Center for Ecosystem Sentinels, Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.

Proceedings. Biological Sciences

|June 3, 2025

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Large carnivores like lions and African wild dogs may use human areas as refuges from each other, demonstrating the anthropogenic refuge effect extends to competing top predators.

Keywords:

anthropogenic refuge human disturbance intraguild competition landscape of risk large carnivore ecology movement ecology

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Last Updated: Sep 19, 2025

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Area of Science:

Ecology
Behavioral Ecology
Conservation Biology

Background:

The anthropogenic refuge effect describes how species use human-dominated areas to avoid predators.
This effect is well-documented for prey and mesopredators but not extensively studied in top predator guilds.
Intraguild competition's role in mediating carnivore responses to human disturbance is poorly understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if intraguild competition influences large carnivore responses to human disturbance.
To test the anthropogenic refuge hypothesis within a guild of competing top predators.
To examine the spatial behavior of lions and African wild dogs in relation to human activity and each other.

Main Methods:

Studied the spatial behavior of sympatric lions and African wild dogs.
Assessed responses to human-dominated areas and lion-encounter risk.
Analyzed how intraguild competition mediates responses to anthropogenic disturbance.

Main Results:

Lions consistently avoided human-dominated areas.
Wild dogs generally avoided human areas, but this behavior shifted in areas with high lion-encounter risk.
Intraguild competition significantly influenced wild dog spatial decisions regarding human-dominated areas.

Conclusions:

The anthropogenic refuge hypothesis applies to competing top predators, extending the ecology of fear.
Intraguild variation in responses to human disturbance can facilitate coexistence among competing species.
Human-dominated areas can act as ecological refuges within large carnivore guilds due to intraguild interactions.