Simultaneous conservation of predator and prey more effective

Time to read
less than
1 minute
Read so far

Simultaneous conservation of predator and prey more effective

March 03, 2017 - 22:09
Posted in section:

Rather than focusing on one species at a time, scientists have discovered that it is more effective to concentrate their conservation efforts on the ecosystem as a whole and focus on both predator and prey species at the same time.

Endangered Southern Resident killer whale hunting salmon.

By using models and case studies, scientists from several institutions studied the pace of both species and ecosystem recovery efforts. They discovered that it was slower and less desirable to pursue the recovery of one species at a time, compared to the recovery of both predators and prey simultaneously.

Publishing their results in the Nature Ecology and Evolution journal, lead author Jameal Samhouri, a research fish biologist at NOAA Fisheries' Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, said, “It's a matter of looking at an ecosystem as a whole, rather than in parts where you focus on one species and then the next.”

“Our model predicted that recovering predators and prey in concert was the fastest and most efficient way of accomplishing the recovery of full communities,” he added.

The team included scientists from NOAA Fisheries, Oregon State University, the University of California Santa Barbara and Imperial College London.

Sources and references