Feeding success in African wild dogs : does kleptoparasitism by spotted hyenas influence hunting group size ?

摘要: 1. Group hunting in social carnivores is generally thought to have evolved through natural selection for improved efficiency of prey capture, increased size apprehended or defence the kill against intra- and interspecific kleptoparasitism. 2. We used a simple model explore how variation group wild dogs Serengeti influences kills kleptoparasitism from spotted hyenas trade-off effects this has on intake rate per dog given selected. 3. The analysis presented suggests that while substantially amount time can access kill, increases rime with rarely fully compensate Cor reduction each dog's share carcass due scramble competition among dogs. 4. A profitability index, which includes limitations probability capturing different sized prey, gut capacity, food depletion time, small groups (1-2) would be particularly vulnerable because they are usable satiate themselves before take over their kills. Intermediate-sized may most effective at meeting nutritional demands range sizes. 5. While reasons recent extinction population remain speculative, paper contributes lo debate by proposing placed major constraint ability individual packs recover episodic disasters.