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Abstract
Predators induce stress in prey and can have beneficial effects in ecosystems, but can also have negative effects on biodiversity if they are overabundant or have been introduced. The growth of human populations is, at the same time, causing degradation of natural habitats and increasing interaction rates of humans with wildlife, such that conservation management routinely considers the effects of human disturbance as tantamount to or surpassing those of predators. The need to simultaneously manage both of these threats is particularly acute in urban areas that are, increasingly, being recognized as global hotspots of wildlife activity. Pressures from altered predator–prey interactions and human activity may each initiate fear responses in prey species above those that are triggered by natural stressors in ecosystems. If fear responses are experienced by prey at elevated levels, on top of responses to multiple environmental stressors, chronic stress impacts may occur. Despite common knowledge of the negative effects of stress, however, it is rare that stress management is considered in conservation, except in intensive ex situ situations such as in captive breeding facilities or zoos. We propose that mitigation of stress impacts on wildlife is crucial for preserving biodiversity, especially as the value of habitats within urban areas increases. As such, we highlight the need for future studies to consider fear and stress in predator–prey ecology to preserve both biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, especially in areas where human disturbance occurs. We suggest, in particular, that non-invasive in situ investigations of endocrinology and ethology be partnered in conservation planning with surveys of habitat resources to incorporate and reduce the effects of fear and stress on wildlife.
Highlights
It is timely to review relevant information from the broad knowledge bases of conservation physiology, ethology, and ecology to communicate the urgent need for wildlife managers and urban planners to routinely consider how fear and stress effects from multiple sources, novel predator interactions and human activities, can affect prey species and ecosystem functioning in increasingly altered systems
The combination of impacts from both naturally occurring and introduced anthropogenic stressors has the potential to cause a cumulative stress response that can result in homeostatic overload or failure, as defined by Romero, Dickens & Cyr (2009), and may result in population collapses due to increased susceptibility of individuals to the additional stressors
If cumulative stressors occur and are suspected to have detrimental effects on target wildlife populations or communities, we suggest that a potentially powerful mitigation approach could be developed based on Cumulative Effects Assessments (CEA)
Summary
Predators in many systems positively influence the local distribution and abundance of their prey (Polis et al, 1998; Ayal, 2007; Estes et al, 2011; Weissburg, Smee & Ferner, 2014), and indirectly but positively influence the functioning of whole ecosystems via trophic cascades (Prugh et al, 2009; Ritchie & Johnson, 2009; Estes et al, 2011; Ripple et al, 2014). There is growing evidence that multiple introduced stressors (e.g. altered predator–prey interactions and disturbance from humans) can have compounding impacts on wildlife, especially when interacting with natural stressors in ecosystems (Geary et al, 2019) For these reasons, it is timely to review relevant information from the broad knowledge bases of conservation physiology, ethology, and ecology to communicate the urgent need for wildlife managers and urban planners to routinely consider how fear and stress effects from multiple sources, novel predator interactions and human activities, can affect prey species and ecosystem functioning in increasingly altered systems. We use Australia as an example to show the benefits of considering cumulative fear and stress impacts to mitigate the effects of introduced eutherian predators, increased human activity, and the possible interactive effects of the two
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