A new study by a biologist at McGill University finds some very interesting reasons for there not being more lions in the world, despite the fact that they have plenty of food.
According to the study, an increase in prey for a lion does not necessarily mean that there is an increase in the number of predators. The findings wre published in the journal Science.
The study itself drew data from over 1,000 previous studies of animals in over 1,500 locations around the globe. First setting out to compare carnivores and herbivores in different locations in Africa, researchers found a pattern that applied consistently. More prey does not mean numbers in predators increase. Surprised by this finding, the researchers looked at other locations all around the world, finding the same results.
"When you double your prey, you also increase your predators, but not to the same extent," said Ian A. Hatton, a biologist at McGill, in an interview with The Washington Post. "Instead they grow at a much diminished rate in comparison to prey."
The finding applied to lions on the African Savanna all the way down to microplankton in the ocean. The pattern could help researchers be able to better monitor endangered species and ecosystems.
The researchers suggest that other factors may instead have a great impact on the prey-predator ratio. For example, competition for an area may be a big factor when it comes to controlling animal populations. Researchers were also able to use the equation to find other things out about an ecosystem. For example, when there are less predators, the population of prey grows, however they reproduce at slower and slower rates as that population grows. This can be predicted using the equation discovered.
The occurrence of the function on all levels suggests that there might be some kind of process that exists at different levels of organization.
