2018-06-14

[public] 1.51M views, 26.5K likes, dislikes audio only

MinuteEarth

Thanks to humans, old school apex predators are struggling to hold onto their perch at the top of the food chain. And now a new class of adaptable mesopredators are remaking the ecosystems they take over.

To see song lyrics, click "CC" on the video or, for an annotated version, click here: https://genius.com/14774391

If you liked this week’s video, you might also like:

ScienceWithTom goes deep on the science in this video with ecologist Alex McInturff: https://youtu.be/TJcgtqjj-yo

LEARN MORE

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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:

- Food Web: the feeding relationships between animals that determine how energy and nutrients are spread throughout an ecosystem.

- Trophic Level: a hierarchical level in an ecosystem made up of organisms that share the same function in the food web.

- Apex predator: the animals at the top trophic level that feed on animals and organisms below them.

- Mesopredator: a member of a mid-ranking trophic level that preys on animals and organisms in lower trophic levels and occasionally gets eat by apex predators.

- Mesopredator Release: an ecological phenomenon in which mesopredators rapidly grow in population once apex predators are removed from an ecosystem.

- Trophic Cascade: a series of dramatic changes in an ecosystem often triggered by mesopredator release.

CREDITS

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Script Writer: Tom McFadden

Script Editor: David Goldenberg

Video Illustrator: Qingyang Chen

Video Director: David Goldenberg, Emily Elert

Video Narrator: Emily Elert, Tom McFadden

With Contributions From: Henry Reich, Alex Reich, Kate Yoshida, Ever Salazar, Emily Elert, Peter Reich

Music by: Nathaniel Schroeder

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REFERENCES

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Darimont, C., Fox, C., Bryan, H., and Reimchen, C. (2015). The Unique Ecology of Human Predators. Science. 349: 6250 (858-860). Retrieved from: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6250/858

Prugh, L., Stoner, C., Epps, C., Bean, W., Ripple, W., Laliberte, A. and Brashares, J. (2009). The Rise of the Mesopredator. BioScience. 59:9 (779-791). Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/bio.2009.59.9.9

Baum, J. and Worm, B. (2009). Cascading Top-down Effects of Changing Oceanic Predator Abundances (2009). Journal of Animal Ecology. 78: 699-714. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19298616

McInturff, Alex. (2018). Personal Communication. Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at University of California, Berkeley.