Check out this recent image from the current round of our compost experiment. Okay, they may be cute, but overabundant white-tailed deer are a problem in forests. Experiments where exclosures prevent deer from accessing certain forest plots (see/hear a description of one such study at http://www.npr.org/2011/06/15/137192604/what-does-more-deer-mean-for-forests) have demonstrated that over-browsing by these herbivores can have a variety of negative impacts, including alteration of plant population structures, reduction of plant species diversity, and promotion of non-native, invasive plant species. What options do we have to mitigate these adverse effects of deer in our human-influenced environment?
Doesn’t ensuring healthy predator populations go a long way to mitigating this problem, in addition to a whole host of other indirect benefits? We are taking our Envirothon team to Montana for the North American competition in August, and have been reading up on how the reintroduction of wolves into the park has dramatically altered the entire ecosystem, improving the health of seemingly unrelated species and increasing biodiversity as a result of trickle-down effects.
Congratulations on your Envirothon team’s performance! Sounds like a wonderful experience in Montana for your students.
Yes, elimination of apex predators does seem to be a major factor leading to increased deer populations. The Yellowstone wolf reintroduction studies certainly point to that predator’s top-down, beneficial effects within that ecosystem by regulating elk populations and altering elk behavior thus reducing their over-grazing.
Along the line of what we are thinking about, the presence of an apex predator can also benefit the scavenging species in an ecological community, as they cash in on the resource of partially eaten carcasses left by those larger predators.