I'm studying interactions between North American predators, specifically wolves, coyotes and bobcats.
I've found evidence from game camera data I've collected that suggests there may be a significant interaction between wolves and bobcats. However, I haven't found published literature or reports on interactions between these two carnivores besides a paper by Stenlund (1955) that bobcats may benefit from scavenging wolf kills.
Does anyone know of any publications in peer-reviewed literature, government reports or even reliable observations from biologists in the field on interactions between wolves and bobcats? Reports on wolves and Canada lynx would be useful too.
Thank you!
Hi Zhi-Teng, Thank you for the suggestions! The Wolves: Behavior, Ecology and Conservation book is where the Stenlund (1955) reference is from, that suggests bobcats scavenge on wolf kills. The Rosenweig (1966) reference compares diets of sympatric North American carnivores, which is relevant, although I'm looking for research or observations that directly examines whether there is facilitation, avoidance, or simply no significant interaction between the two species. It seems that perhaps there isn't any published research or reports on this, although there is ample research on their diet and habitat selection, which is enough to make educated guesses as to how they may interact. Thanks again!
Hi,
Here is some papers, hope that it would be helpful as a reference. Thanks!
Article Predator interactions, mesopredator release and biodiversity...
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/10.1139/z89-170#.Wn6bnCVubIU
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2980/1195-6860(2007)14[214:IBCPCA]2.0.CO;2
Like Dr. Krofel, I would imagine there is much more on interactions between lynx and wolves, than between bobcats and wolves. One major reason for this is that thanks to the gopher choker brigade, wolves have been exterminated from the vast majority of bobcat range in the US. I wold look to Canadian sources, although not much is known about wolves in BC. You might look up work by Sara Rinkevich, who did her PhD on Mexican wolf reintroduction in Arizona.
Dr. Miha Krofel, thank you for the suggestions, especially the reference on golden jackal expansion in Europe, this is relevant to my research on predators in human dominated landscapes in North America.
Dr. Raymond Pierotti, I looked up Dr. Rinkevich's dissertation and found data that I hadn't come across before on the diets of North American apex and mesopredators, thank you for this suggestion. I agree Canadian sources may be the most promising for finding more information.
Dominika, thank you for the link, that blog has great information and photos on interactions between wolves and Eurasian lynx! Because of the higher use of ungulate prey by Eurasian lynx, it seems they may fill a niche more similar to the cougar than the North American bobcat. Bobcats are smaller than Eurasian lynx and prey on ungulates (especially fawns) as well, but the majority of their diet is lagomorphs and rodents.
In the report by Ruggiero et al. 1999 below, they state that Lynx would benefit from the presence of wolves.
Article Ecology and Conservation of Lynx in the United States
You may want to monitor this project website (https://predatorpreyproject.weebly.com/) or reach out to Laura R. Prugh
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