A new study published in Ecography assessed how climate change may be destabilizing interactions between predators and prey in the wild—specifically, how owl-prey interactions have responded to environmental variability and resource availability over 24 years in the semi-arid ecosystem of Bosque Fray Jorge National Park, Chile.
In their analysis of data from 1990–2015, the researchers found that during periods of low precipitation, when resource availability was reduced, owl species increasingly focused on different prey, reducing dietary overlap. After 2003, owls also began incorporating new prey species into their diets, increasing the overall richness of prey in the food web. Temperature was the strongest driver of these long-term changes in prey richness.
"Our findings suggest that changing environmental conditions are reshaping predator–prey interactions," said corresponding author Angéline Bertin, PhD, of the University of La Serena, in Chile. "As climate change intensifies, the fragility of these ecological networks may become more pronounced. Understanding how climate and resource availability shape predator–prey dynamics will be essential for predicting ecosystem resilience."
URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecog.08304
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