Biology Publications
Document Type
Letter to the Editor
Publication Date
10-1-2019
Journal
Ecology Letters
Volume
22
Issue
10
First Page
1578
Last Page
1586
URL with Digital Object Identifier
10.1111/ele.13344
Abstract
Apex predators such as large carnivores can have cascading, landscape-scale impacts across wildlife communities, which could result largely from the fear they inspire, although this has yet to be experimentally demonstrated. Humans have supplanted large carnivores as apex predators in many systems, and similarly pervasive impacts may now result from fear of the human ‘super predator’. We conducted a landscape-scale playback experiment demonstrating that the sound of humans speaking generates a landscape of fear with pervasive effects across wildlife communities. Large carnivores avoided human voices and moved more cautiously when hearing humans, while medium-sized carnivores became more elusive and reduced foraging. Small mammals evidently benefited, increasing habitat use and foraging. Thus, just the sound of a predator can have landscape-scale effects at multiple trophic levels. Our results indicate that many of the globally observed impacts on wildlife attributed to anthropogenic activity may be explained by fear of humans.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Notes
Author Accepted Manuscript for :
Suraci, J.P., Clinchy, M., Zanette, L.Y. and Wilmers, C.C. (2019), Fear of humans as apex predators has landscape-scale impacts from mountain lions to mice. Ecol Lett, 22: 1578-1586. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13344