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Warming Alters Predator-Prey Balance
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Jul 21, 2008 03:28pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - Washington Post |
| News Date | Monday, July 21, 2008 09:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 21, 2008; Page A06
ISLE ROYALE, Mich. -- For six decades since they loped across frozen Lake Superior to reach this rocky island, wolves have roamed 45-mile-long Isle Royale, the nation's least-visited national park.
The wolves survived the extermination efforts by the island's few inhabitants, who in the 1950s and '60s saw them as mortal enemies. And they survived an outbreak of deadly canine parvovirus in the 1980s. Now, scientists tracking the wolves in the world's longest-running "single predator-single prey" study fear that the Isle Royale wolves could become extinct because of global warming.
Next weekend, scientists and National Park Service officials from around the country will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Isle Royale Wolf/Moose Study, which has helped reveal how predator-prey interactions can affect entire ecosystems. Because the two species live in geographic isolation here in the largest of the Great Lakes, with no other predators or prey and minimal interference from humans, it is an ideal laboratory in which to study how their fates are intertwined.
But the anniversary may not be a happy one, as both populations are close to their lowest-ever levels and have been feeling the effects of Earth's rising temperatures. |
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