Landscape Of Fear Research Articles

Hedgehogs driven from countryside by landscape of fear

![Figure][1] A juvenile hedgehog. Photo credit: Carly Pettett. Armoured in a coat of apparently impenetrable spines, hedgehogs should be almost invincible. Yet, the rapid loss of their hedgerow homes and changes in agricultural practice may be forcing these iconic creatures out of their

The Anti-Landscape ed. by David E. Nye and Sarah Elkind

Reviewed by: The Anti-Landscape ed. by David E. Nye and Sarah Elkind Timothy James LeCain (bio) The Anti-Landscape. Edited by David E. Nye and Sarah Elkind. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2014. Pp. 218. $65. J. B. Jackson defined "landscape" as the "infrastructure or background for our collective existence." By contrast, David Nye explains in the opening essay to this collection, an "anti-landscape" is a space that does not sustain human life in either a biological or sociocultural sense. Nye and co-editor Sarah Elkind suggest that this anti-landscape concept provides a useful extension of Jackson's earlier fusing of the human and non-human. The movement between landscape and anti-landscape might further bring together materialist and constructivist approaches under the capacious banner of the environmental humanities. It is an ambitious goal, not easily realized with such an eclectic collection of essays. Nye and Elkind provide some useful organizational structure by dividing the volume into three sections. The first, "The Threatened Landscape," most squarely pursues the idea of the anti-landscape as a degradation of the eco-social potentialities of a previously useful landscape. James Fleming's essay perhaps most successfully unites the cultural and material by surveying visual representations of what he terms "skyscapes" and "anti-skyscapes." By its literally transparent nature, Fleming notes that the sky is often both materially and culturally transparent. Yet some artists have developed new ways of making the invisible visible, as with a French duo's use of laser lights to outline the emissions from a power plant in a noxious green. On the more material side, the historian of irrigation technology Maurits Ertsen analyzes the relationship between British colonial irrigation canals in Pakistan, which raised water tables, and subsequent farmer-initiated tube wells, which lowered them. Such complex historical evolutions challenge our tendency to see irrigation systems as leading in any simple way towards either civilizational progress or collapse. Ertsen thus seems to suggest that the line between nurturing landscape and sterile anti-landscape is decidedly fluid. [End Page 1101] Section II, "Anti-Landscapes," pursues a more cultural turn rooted mostly in literary studies. Anna Flügge treats the anti-landscape mostly metaphorically in her analysis of two prominent American novels, The Great Gatsby and The Big Sleep. These examples of a "melancholic modernism" suggest that their authors believed that an unproductive anti-landscape gives rise to a largely meaningless and unsustainable modern culture. The characters Nick Carraway and Philip Marlowe both sense the inadequacy of the sterile anti-landscape, yet are equally incapable of escaping it. Treating the landscape somewhat more concretely, Øyunn Hestetun's perceptive analysis of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road suggests an intimate connection between the cultural and material: the non-human landscape has the power to both nurture and destroy what we wrongly think of as a solely human-created identity and culture. McCarthy's evocation of a horrific "landscape of fear," Øyunn argues, reveals an environment that can no longer nurture either biological or moral survival. A degenerate anti-landscape creates a degenerate culture, McCarthy seems to suggest, effectively collapsing the modernist division of the material and the cultural. In the third section, "Recoveries," the volume returns to more concrete material examples of various attempts to remediate anti-landscapes. Anna Storm's insightful analysis of an abandoned open pit mine and a nuclear power plant, in Sweden and Lithuania respectively, admits that practical remediation of the environmental damage and pollution at such sites is extraordinarily difficult. Nonetheless, even these badly wounded sites might yet be turned to productive social and cultural purposes when used for historical and cultural heritage. Nikolet Jensen's fascinating history of the transformation of an abandoned elevated rail line in New York City into a popular green linear parkway offers perhaps the most optimistic story in the volume, demonstrating how urban and environmental preservation can at times be united. In her "Afterword," Elkind examines recent efforts to transform a former dump along Denmark's Odense fjord into a recreational area. While the project has been reasonably successful, Elkind raises a hard question. If the remediation of an anti-landscape succeeds only in making it...

Differential behavioural flexibility in response to predation risk in native and introduced tropical savannah rodents

Differential predation risk between habitats, or ‘the landscape of fear’, can have profound impacts on foraging strategies of prey. Few studies, however, have described the landscape of fear in the wild, in relation to predator densities. Using giving-up density experiments, and vertebrate surveys, we described the landscape of fear for two rodent species in relation to actual predator abundances in a tropical savannah. We offered native eastern chestnut mice, Pseudomys gracilicaudatus, and introduced house mice, Mus musculus domesticus, food in the open, and under the cover of grass. When eastern brown snakes, Pseudonaja textilis, were absent, both eastern chestnut and house mice consumed more food items under grass. In habitats where snakes were abundant, however, eastern chestnut mice changed their foraging behaviour, and consumed more food items in the open than under grass. In contrast, non-native house mice reduced their foraging activity under cover, but showed no increase in foraging in the open in the presence of snakes. Thus, native eastern chestnut mice have the ability to change their foraging tactics to adjust their antipredator behaviour to remain successful in the presence of native eastern brown snakes, whereas introduced house mice did not exhibit this behaviour.

In the absence of a "landscape of fear": How lions, hyenas, and cheetahs coexist.

Aggression by top predators can create a “landscape of fear” in which subordinate predators restrict their activity to low‐risk areas or times of day. At large spatial or temporal scales, this can result in the costly loss of access to resources. However, fine‐scale reactive avoidance may minimize the risk of aggressive encounters for subordinate predators while maintaining access to resources, thereby providing a mechanism for coexistence. We investigated fine‐scale spatiotemporal avoidance in a guild of African predators characterized by intense interference competition. Vulnerable to food stealing and direct killing, cheetahs are expected to avoid both larger predators; hyenas are expected to avoid lions. We deployed a grid of 225 camera traps across 1,125 km2 in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, to evaluate concurrent patterns of habitat use by lions, hyenas, cheetahs, and their primary prey. We used hurdle models to evaluate whether smaller species avoided areas preferred by larger species, and we used time‐to‐event models to evaluate fine‐scale temporal avoidance in the hours immediately surrounding top predator activity. We found no evidence of long‐term displacement of subordinate species, even at fine spatial scales. Instead, hyenas and cheetahs were positively associated with lions except in areas with exceptionally high lion use. Hyenas and lions appeared to actively track each, while cheetahs appear to maintain long‐term access to sites with high lion use by actively avoiding those areas just in the hours immediately following lion activity. Our results suggest that cheetahs are able to use patches of preferred habitat by avoiding lions on a moment‐to‐moment basis. Such fine‐scale temporal avoidance is likely to be less costly than long‐term avoidance of preferred areas: This may help explain why cheetahs are able to coexist with lions despite high rates of lion‐inflicted mortality, and highlights reactive avoidance as a general mechanism for predator coexistence.

Fox control and 1080 baiting conundrums: time to prepare for a CRISPR solution

For many years, managing rock-wallaby colonies (Petrogale lateralis lateralis) in the Western Australian Wheatbelt seemed to be a matter of routinely exposing foxes (Vulpes vulpes) to toxic baits (sodium fluoroacetate, 1080®) laid around their rocky outcrops. Recent research has revealed that 1080 baitings are no longer a viable management option. Baiting is flawed over the long term because it does not erase the wallabies’ pervasive fear of being depredated by foxes, which can still make their menacing presence felt before succumbing to poison bait. Accordingly, a ‘landscape of fear’ exists on all rock-wallaby sites, creating a ‘virtual boundary’ beyond which they fear to forage. Severe overgrazing occurs, ultimately causing population crashes, leaving behind devastated outcrops greatly diminished in carrying capacity. The fallout from this scenario produces a management conundrum. Rock-wallaby populations are unstable in the absence of fox control, and conversely, they are also unstable under long-term fox control. Management is now left with few options, and the future of the colonies remains open. Other conundrums involving bait interference and mesopredator release are described. An alternative to 1080 baiting is clearly needed. Recent developments in gene engineering (CRISPR technology) offer a solution in the foreseeable future.

Habitat selection by a large herbivore at multiple spatial and temporal scales is primarily governed by food resources

Habitat selection can be considered as a hierarchical process in which animals satisfy their habitat requirements at different ecological scales. Theory predicts that spatial and temporal scales should co‐vary in most ecological processes and that the most limiting factors should drive habitat selection at coarse ecological scales, but be less influential at finer scales. Using detailed location data on roe deer Capreolus capreolus inhabiting the Bavarian Forest National Park, Germany, we investigated habitat selection at several spatial and temporal scales. We tested 1) whether time‐varying patterns were governed by factors reported as having the largest effects on fitness, 2) whether the trade‐off between forage and predation risks differed among spatial and temporal scales and 3) if spatial and temporal scales are positively associated. We analysed the variation in habitat selection within the landscape and within home ranges at monthly intervals, with respect to land‐cover type and proxys of food and cover over seasonal and diurnal temporal scales. The fine‐scale temporal variation follows a nycthemeral cycle linked to diurnal variation in human disturbance. The large‐scale variation matches seasonal plant phenology, suggesting food resources being a greater limiting factor than lynx predation risk. The trade‐off between selection for food and cover was similar on seasonal and diurnal scale. Habitat selection at the different scales may be the consequence of the temporal variation and predictability of the limiting factors as much as its association with fitness. The landscape of fear might have less importance at the studied scale of habitat selection than generally accepted because of the predator hunting strategy. Finally, seasonal variation in habitat selection was similar at the large and small spatial scales, which may arise because of the marked philopatry of roe deer. The difference is supposed to be greater for wider ranging herbivores.

Passive gear‐induced timidity syndrome in wild fish populations and its potential ecological and managerial implications

AbstractHuman exploitation of wild‐living animals has been suggested to create a ‘landscape of fear’. A consequence could be that individuals surviving intensive harvesting, either as a result of behavioural plasticity and/or evolutionary change, exhibit increased average timidity. In the aquatic world, such effects are particularly well documented in passively operated fishing gears common to many commercial and recreational fisheries, such as angling, trapping or gill netting. We thus propose that an exploitation‐induced timidity syndrome should be a widespread pattern in fisheries. Importantly, we argue that the syndrome can be associated with several ecological and managerial consequences for social groups, populations, food webs, fisheries and assessment of stocks. We suggest research priorities to deepen our understanding of how exploited fish populations behaviourally respond to harvesting.

Spatial patterns of African ungulate aggregation reveal complex but limited risk effects from reintroduced carnivores.

The "landscape of fear" model, recently advanced in research on the non-lethal effects of carnivores on ungulates, predicts that prey will exhibit detectable antipredator behavior not only during risky times (i.e., predators in close proximity) but also in risky places (i.e., habitat where predators kill prey or tend to occur). Aggregation is an important antipredator response in numerous ungulate species, making it a useful metric to evaluate the strength and scope of the landscape of fear in a multi-carnivore, multi-ungulate system. We conducted ungulate surveys over a 2-year period in South Africa to test the influence of three broad-scale sources of variation in the landscape on spatial patterns in aggregation: (1) habitat structure, (2) where carnivores tended to occur (i.e., population-level utilization distributions), and (3) where carnivores tended to kill ungulate prey (i.e., probabilistic kill site maps). We analyzed spatial variation in aggregation for six ungulate species exposed to predation from recently reintroduced lion (Panthera leo) and spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta). Although we did detect larger aggregations of ungulates in "risky places," these effects existed primarily for smaller-bodied (<150 kg) ungulates and were relatively moderate (change of 4 individuals across all habitats). In comparison, ungulate aggregations tended to increase at a slightly lower rate in habitat that was more open. The lion, an ambush (stalking) carnivore, had stronger influence on ungulate aggregation than the hyena, an active (coursing) carnivore. In addition, places where lions tended to kill prey had a greater effect on ungulate aggregation than places where lions tended to occur, but an opposing pattern existed for hyena. Our study reveals heterogeneity in the landscape of fear and suggests broad-scale risk effects following carnivore reintroduction only moderately influence ungulate aggregation size and vary considerably by predator hunting mode, type of predation risk, and prey species.

Vegetation Type Influences Livestock Predation by Leopards: Implications for Conservation in Agro-Ecosystems

Carnivore—livestock conflict has been a driver of human—carnivore conflict since the domestication of ungulates and needs to be addressed to secure the conservation of carnivores. Leopard—livestock conflict is a contentious issue in the Baviaanskloof Mega-Reserve (BMR), South Africa. Little is known about the spatial distribution of livestock losses and the associated management responses by farmers. We investigated the vegetation-specific livestock predation by leopards in the BMR, as well as the consequences for livestock management and biodiversity preservation. Leopard killed livestock in 14 of the 22 vegetation types, of which Groot Valley Thicket, Cockscomb Mountain Fynbos and Baviaanskloof Mountain Fynbos were ‘used’ more than expected. Leopard predation was focused on the properties that bordered the reserve, but constituted a relatively small proportion of livestock losses on these properties. Farmers respond to this actual predation and perceived predation by removing livestock from areas bordering the reserve. Given the high levels of herbivory exerted on the vegetation by livestock, the removal of livestock may create plant refugia from herbivory. Thus, we propose that leopard predation may induce human-mediated behavioural effects on livestock which resembles the behavioural responses of herbivores to ‘landscapes of fear’. Therefore, retaining top predators may assist in the conservation of biodiversity within multi-use landscapes by maintaining predator—prey dynamics and associated top-down processes.

A “death trap” in the landscape of fear

Abstract A crucial element in the “the landscape of fear” concept is that prey animals are aware of varying levels of predation risk at a spatial scale. This often leads to a negative spatial relationship between prey and predator in which prey avoid the most risky sites in the landscape. In this paper, we argue that our understanding of large carnivore-ungulate interactions is biased by studies from highly heterogeneous landscapes (e.g. the Yellowstone National Park). Due to a high availability of refuges and foraging sites in such landscapes, prey are able to reduce predation risk by showing habitat shifts. Besides the spatial heterogeneity at the landscape scale, the ungulate response to predation risk can be affected by the hunting mode (stalking vs. cursorial) of the predator. We propose that prey cannot easily avoid predation risk by moving to less risky habitats in more homogenous landscapes with concentrated food resources, especially where the large carnivores’ assemblage includes both stalking and cursorial species. No distinct refuges for prey may occur in such landscapes due to equally high accessibility to predators in all habitats, while concentrated resources make prey distribution more predictable. We discuss a model of a densely forested landscape based on a case study of the Białowieża Primeval Forest, Poland. Within this landscape, ungulates focus their foraging activity on small food-rich forest gaps, which turn out to be “death traps” as the gaps are primarily targeted by predators (stalking lynx and cursorial wolf) while hunting. No alternative of moving to low predation risk areas exist for prey due to risk from wolves in surrounding closed-canopy forest. As a result, the prey is exposed to constant high predation pressure in contrast to heterogeneous landscapes with less concentrated resources and more refuge areas. Future research should focus on explaining how ungulates are coping with predation risk in these landscapes that offer little choice of escaping predation by considering behavioural and physiological (e.g. metabolic, hormonal) responses.

Scatterhoarding rodents favor higher predation risks for cache sites: The potential for predators to influence the seed dispersal process

Scatterhoarding rodents often place caches in the open where pilferage rates are reduced, suggesting that they tradeoff higher risks of predation for more secure cache sites. We tested this hypothesis in two study systems by measuring predation risks inferred from measures of giving-up densities (GUDs) at known cache sites and other sites for comparison. Rodent GUDs were measured with small trays containing 3 L of fine sand mixed with sunflower seeds. In the first experiment, we relied on a 2-year seed dispersal study in a natural forest to identify caches of eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) and then measured GUDs at: (i) these caches; (ii) comparable points along logs and rocks where rodent activity was assumed highest; and (iii) a set of random points. We found that GUDs and, presumably, predation risks, were higher at both cache and random points than those with cover. At the second site, we measured GUDs of eastern gray squirrels in an open park system and found that GUDs were consistently lowest at the base of the tree compared to more open sites, where previous studies show caching by squirrels to be highest and pilferage rates by naïve competitors to be lowest. These results confirm that predation risks can influence scatterhoarding decisions but that they are also highly context dependent, and that the landscape of fear, now so well documented in the literature, could potentially shape the temporal and spatial patterns of seedling establishment and forest regeneration in systems where scatterhoarding is common.

Avian top predator and the landscape of fear: responses of mammalian mesopredators to risk imposed by the golden eagle.

Top predators may induce extensive cascading effects on lower trophic levels, for example, through intraguild predation (IGP). The impacts of both mammalian and avian top predators on species of the same class have been extensively studied, but the effects of the latter upon mammalian mesopredators are not yet as well known. We examined the impact of the predation risk imposed by a large avian predator, the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos, L.), on its potential mammalian mesopredator prey, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes, L.), and the pine marten (Martes martes, L.). The study combined 23 years of countrywide data from nesting records of eagles and wildlife track counts of mesopredators in Finland, northern Europe. The predation risk of the golden eagle was modeled as a function of territory density, density of fledglings produced, and distance to nearest active eagle territory, with the expectation that a high predation risk would reduce the abundances of smaller sized pine martens in particular. Red foxes appeared not to suffer from eagle predation, being in fact most numerous close to eagle nests and in areas with more eagle territories. This is likely due to similar prey preferences of the two predators and the larger size of foxes enabling them to escape eagle predation risk. Somewhat contrary to our prediction, the abundance of pine martens increased from low to intermediate territory density and at close proximity to eagle nests, possibly because of similar habitat preferences of martens and eagles. We found a slightly decreasing trend of marten abundance at high territory density, which could indicate that the response in marten populations is dependent on eagle density. However, more research is needed to better establish whether mesopredators are intimidated or predated by golden eagles, and whether such effects could in turn cascade to lower trophic levels, benefitting herbivorous species.

The dilemma of foraging herbivores: dealing with food and fear.

For foraging herbivores, both food quality and predation risk vary across the landscape. Animals should avoid low-quality food patches in favour of high-quality ones, and seek safe patches while avoiding risky ones. Herbivores often face the foraging dilemma, however, of choosing between high-quality food in risky places or low-quality food in safe places. Here, we explore how and why the interaction between food quality and predation risk affects foraging decisions of mammalian herbivores, focusing on browsers confronting plant toxins in a landscape of fear. We draw together themes of plant-herbivore and predator-prey interactions, and the roles of animal ecophysiology, behaviour and personality. The response of herbivores to the dual costs of food and fear depends on the interplay of physiology and behaviour. We discuss detoxification physiology in dealing with plant toxins, and stress physiology associated with perceived predation risk. We argue that behaviour is the interface enabling herbivores to stay or quit food patches in response to their physiological tolerance to these risks. We hypothesise that generalist and specialist herbivores perceive the relative costs of plant defence and predation risk differently and intra-specifically, individuals with different personalities and physiologies should do so too, creating individualised landscapes of food and fear. We explore the ecological significance and emergent impacts of these individual-based foraging outcomes on populations and communities, and offer predictions that can be clearly tested. In doing so, we provide an integrated platform advancing herbivore foraging theory with food quality and predation risk at its core.

Context‐dependent stress responses and their connections to fitness in a landscape of fear

AbstractThe acute glucocorticoid stress response is presumed to facilitate escape from life‐threatening situations such as predation and thus it is assumed to be linked to fitness. However, the fitness effects of glucocorticoid reactivity remain controversial, as these effects may be context‐dependent. Individuals differing in their emphasis on current versus future reproduction may differ in their risk‐taking under threat of predation; this variation in risk‐taking may be mediated by variations in stress reactivity. We set out to test whether predation risk (island‐ and year‐specific proportion of depredated nests) modified the relationships between stress responsiveness and current reproductive investment (clutch weight) and between stress responsiveness and reproductive success (viable proportion of the clutch) in the long‐lived female eider Somateria mollissima. This study system shows large spatial and annual fluctuations in predation risk, indexed by the annual island‐specific proportion of depredated nests. The capture stress‐related corticosterone output was attenuated with increasing clutch weight under low predation pressure but elevated under severe predation pressure, and females in well‐concealed nests had lower stress responsiveness. The viable proportion of the clutch decreased with increasing corticosterone reactivity under low to moderate predation pressure, but slightly increased under severe predation pressure. The acute stress response may thus mediate adaptive plasticity; dampened stress reactivity may ensure successful reproduction under low predation threat or in nest sites reducing detection by visual predators, whereas preparing for potential attacks may be favoured under elevated predation risk.

Induced tolerance expressed as relaxed behavioural threat response in millimetre-sized aquatic organisms.

Natural selection shapes behaviour in all organisms, but this is difficult to study in small, millimetre-sized, organisms. With novel labelling and tracking techniques, based on nanotechnology, we here show how behaviour in zooplankton (Daphnia magna) is affected by size, morphology and previous exposure to detrimental ultraviolet radiation (UVR). All individuals responded with immediate downward swimming to UVR exposure, but when released from the threat they rapidly returned to the surface. Large individuals swam faster and generally travelled longer distances than small individuals. Interestingly, individuals previously exposed to UVR (during several generations) showed a more relaxed response to UVR and travelled shorter total distances than those that were naive to UVR, suggesting induced tolerance to the threat. In addition, animals previously exposed to UVR also had smaller eyes than the naive ones, whereas UVR-protective melanin pigmentation of the animals was similar between populations. Finally, we show that smaller individuals have lower capacity to avoid UVR which could explain patterns in natural systems of lower migration amplitudes in small individuals. The ability to change behavioural patterns in response to a threat, in this case UVR, adds to our understanding of how organisms navigate in the 'landscape of fear', and this has important implications for individual fitness and for interaction strengths in biotic interactions.

Climate and the landscape of fear in an African savanna.

Herbivores frequently have to make trade-offs between two basic needs: the need to acquire forage and the need to avoid predation. One manifestation of this trade-off is the 'landscape of fear' phenomenon - wherein herbivores avoid areas of high perceived predation risk even if forage is abundant or of high quality in those areas. Although this phenomenon is well established among invertebrates, its applicability to terrestrial large herbivores remains debated, in part because experimental evidence is scarce. This study was designed to (i) experimentally test the effects of tree density - a key landscape feature associated with predation risk for African ungulates - on herbivore habitat use and (ii) establish whether habitat use patterns could be explained by trade-offs between foraging opportunities and predation risk avoidance. In a Kenyan savanna system, replicate plots dominated by the tree Acacia drepanolobium were cleared, thinned or left intact. Ungulate responses were measured over four years, which included years of moderate rainfall as well as a severe drought. Under average rainfall conditions, most herbivores (primarily plains zebra, Grant's gazelle and hartebeest) favoured sites with fewer trees and higher visibility - regardless of grass production - while elephants (too large to be vulnerable to predation) favoured sites with many trees. During the drought, however, herbivores favoured sites that had high grass biomass, but not high visibility. Thus, during the drought, herbivores sought areas where food was more abundant, despite probable higher risk of predation. These results illustrate that the 'landscape of fear', and the associated interactions between top-down and bottom-up effects, is not static, but rather shifts markedly under different conditions. Climate thus has the potential to alter the strength and spatial dynamics of behaviourally mediated cascades in large herbivore systems.

Negotiating multiple cues of predation risk in a landscape of fear: what scares free‐ranging brushtail possums?

AbstractHerbivores live in a landscape of fear and must incorporate danger in their foraging decisions, balancing their need of food and safety using a variety of cues to assess the risk of predation. These cues can either be direct (i.e. signalling the possible presence of a predator) or indirect (i.e. linked to the likelihood of encountering a predator). How then do herbivores negotiate these multiple cues in the landscape? And which type of cues do foraging herbivores use to assess variation in predation risk? We examined these questions by investigating the foraging responses of a free‐ranging marsupial herbivore, the common brushtail possum Trichosurus vulpecula to perceived predation risk. We found that indirect habitat‐related cues of predation (i.e. feeder location) consistently influenced foraging, while other more variable indirect (i.e. illumination) and direct cues (i.e. predator odour) did not. Giving‐up‐density at above‐ground feeders was always lower than at on‐ground feeders. Possums spent more time and foraged more at the above‐ground feeders than at the on‐ground feeders. Our results demonstrate that when multiple cues are present, varying in the accuracy of the information they provide about predation risk, possums respond to habitat‐related cues. Possums manage risk by modifying behaviours, reducing time spent foraging in areas where potential risk is perceived as high. Thus, when the location of a predator at a certain point in time and space is unknown, and food demands are high, habitat‐related cues are a safe choice to assess predation risk, with reliable returns for free‐ranging herbivores.

The landscape of fear: the missing link to understand top-down and bottom-up controls of prey abundance?

Identifying factors that may be responsible for regulating the size of animal populations is a cornerstone in understanding population ecology. The main factors that are thought to influence population size are either resources (bottom-up), or predation (top-down), or interspecific competition (parallel). However, there are highly variable and often contradictory results regarding their relative strengths and influence. These varied results are often interpreted as indicating "shifting control" among the three main factors, or a complex, nonlinear relationship among environmental variables, resource availability, predation, and competition. We argue here that there is a "missing link" in our understanding of predator-prey dynamics. We explore whether the landscape-of-fear model can help us clarify the inconsistencies and increase our understanding of the roles, extent, and possible interactions of top-down, bottom-up, and parallel factors on prey population abundance. We propose two main predictions derived from the landscape-of-fear model: (1) for a single species, we suggest that as the makeup of the landscape of fear changes from relatively safe to relatively risky, bottom-up impacts switch from strong to weak as top-down impacts go from weak to strong; (2) for two or more species, interspecific competitive interactions produce various combinations of bottom-up, top-down, and parallel impacts depending on the dominant competing species and whether the landscapes of fear are shared or distinctive among competing species. We contend that these predictions could successfully explain many of the complex and contradictory results of current research. We test some of these predictions based on long-term data for small mammals from the Chihuahuan Desert in the United States, and Mexico. We conclude that the landscape-of-fear model does provide reasonable explanations for many of the reported studies and should be tested further to better understand the effects of bottom-up, top-down, and parallel factors on population dynamics.

Revisiting distinctions between ranching and pastoralism: A matter of interspecies relations between livestock, people, and predators

North American ranching did not evolve as a solution to the ecological contradictions of pastoralism. This has been the conventional view from an institutional perspective, but from a perspective of interspecies relations, the reverse is more plausible. Rather than invest in careful husbandry, early colonists released livestock to fend for themselves and henceforth partook in the eradication of predators. This estrangement of livestock from the domestic sphere and the persecution of predators have lasted beyond the open range era and persist on private ranches. Range science tailored its prescriptions to the free-roaming livestock practices of ranching. But stocking rate guidelines are not sufficient to prevent the degradation of rangelands. Trophic cascade ecology has since demonstrated that the sound distribution of grazing activities takes place on a landscape of fear where nonlethal predation effects prevent the overutilization of key sites. In order to replicate these effects without undue losses, now that predators are protected, ranchers are compelled to reformulate their interspecies relations of estrangement and persecution. Technologies are a poor substitute for human presence, and ranchers are faced with adopting pastoralist practices of herding in order to improve rangelands and maintain surveillance to prevent predation. Thus by turning to pastoralist interspecies relations and practices, ranching might resolve its ecological contradictions.

Dignifying a Bare Life and Making Place through Exhumation: Cobán CREOMPAZ Former Military Garrison, Guatemala

La población maya representaron el mayor número de vidas que se perdieron durante el conflicto armado interno de Guatemala. El Estado les etiqueta como el “enemigo interno” y simpatizantes de la guerrilla, lo que justifica su masacre masiva. Concepto de la “vida desnuda” de Agamben se utiliza para explicar cómo el Estado legitimó las masacres de los mayas. Las exhumaciones realizadas por la Fundación de Antropología Forense de Guatemala (FAFG) dentro de la antigua base militar de Cobán CREOMPAZ son el estudio de caso para nuestro argumento de que el proceso activo de exhumación es un acto de “haciendo lugar” y volver a dignifica a las víctimas. Paisajes de miedo y terror enmarcan nuestra interpretación de las geografías de violencia de CREOMPAZ.