Meta-Analysis of the Large Herbivores’ Trophic Spectra in Northern Asia Concerning Changes of Dominant Primary Consumers

Abstract

The paper deals with influence of trophic competition on large herbivore community dynamics in Northern Asia related to landscape changes and extermination by humans. It was evaluated how the competitive asymmetry in trophic resource use corresponds to differences in geographic range or population size and in their trends and/or rates of change, which reflect directions of the dominant primary consumers change in the late Pleistocene and Holocene and at present. It was found that the directions mainly correspond to competitive asymmetry and were driven already during landscape changes after the Last Glacial Maximum, and later the human influence mainly enhanced and continues to enhance the competition influence. Regulating abundance relation of wild and domestic herbivore species humans become an element of the trophic competition regulation.