The fear large carnivores inspire, independent of their direct killing of prey, may itself cause cascading effects down food webs potentially critical for conserving ecosystem function, particularly by affecting large herbivores and mesocarnivores. However, the evidence of this has been repeatedly challenged because it remains experimentally untested. Here we show that experimentally manipulati...

Interaction among species through competition is a principle process structuring ecological communities, affecting behavior, distribution, and ultimately the population dynamics of species. High competition among large African carnivores, associated with extensive diet overlap, manifests in interactions between subordinate African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) and dominant lions (Panthera leo) and ...

One million to two million years ago, most of today's large, predatory mammals coexisted with larger extinct species, such as saber-toothed cats and giant running bears. Comparisons of tooth fracture frequencies from modern and Pleistocene carnivores imply that predator-prey dynamics and interspecific interactions must have been substantially different 36,000 to 10,000 years ago. Tooth fracture...

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is an emerging zoonosis disease in countries of the Mediterranean basin caused by Leishmania infantum. Although domestic dogs are the main vertebrate hosts, many wild carnivores have been considered playing a role in the spreading of VL. Sporadic numbers of dog and human VL have been reported in Golestan Province in North Iran. The present study was performed to dete...

hydatidosis is one of the major zoonotic diseases that cause considerable economic losses and public health problems worldwide. the present study was conducted to determine the prevalence of e. granulosus in domestic and wild carnivores and the infection rate of hydatid cyst in slaughtered animals and people in kashan area, central iran. a total of 142 carnivores including 70 stray dogs, 40 jac...

Predator-prey body mass relationships are a vital part of food webs across ecosystems and provide key information for predicting the susceptibility of carnivore populations to extinction. Despite this, there has been limited research on the minimum and maximum prey size of mammalian carnivores. Without information on large-scale patterns of prey mass, we limit our understanding of predation pre...