The Perfect Keystone Predator

After our recent, extremely interesting documentary on Predators, and the massive role they play in the world, I decided to research an animal which I have always found fascinating. Wolves, play an instrumental role in their ecosystem as shown in our documentary. This led me to question what other far reaching effects wolves apply to their inhabited area.

Wolves’ status as a keystone predator obviously implies that they are responsible for keeping much of the herbivore population in check. They are so succesful in doing so, because a wolfpack’s territory is so large. They also play a key role for their prey’s social dynamic as they eliminate those animals which are weak and struggling.

While researching I came upon a very interesting article about a wolves impact on lower levels of a food chain and the subsequent effects of climate change. Unlike other predators, such as bears and mountain lions, wolves leave the remainders of their kills for scavengers. This left over food becomes essential during the winter season as food supplies become low. When winters are severe more elk die off, leaving more food for scavengers. However, due to climate change winters are become shorter and less cold allowing more elk to survive, leaving scavengers with no immediate food supply. By continually hunting elk, despite the severity of the winter, wolves essentially keep the food chain intact and act as a buffer for lower level animals, against environmental conditions that could lead to the decrease in food populations. http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=getdocument&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030132&ct=1

Wolves, in a pack dynamic

 A more obvious effect on climate change was shown by our movie which proved that when wolves were eliminated in Yellowstone, aspen trees stopped growing. Without a keystone predator to hunt the animals that used the aspen for food, the aspen had no buffer and simply started to die off.

It is absolutely incredible the impact one predator can make on an entire ecosystem. The effects of a wolf can impact nearly every possible variable in an ecosystem. While some may harp on the wolves bad reputation for killing livestock noone can question the amount of good this beautiful animal does for its surrounding area, and the entire world.