Marginal support for a trophic cascade among sympatric canids in peripheral wolf range

摘要: Trophic cascades reportedly structure ecological communities through indirect species interactions. Though the predator–herbivore–autotroph relationship has received much attention, mechanistic evidence supporting intraguild trophic cascades is rare. We established 348 remote camera sites (1 August–5 September 2019) across seven study areas of varying wolf (Canis lupus) density including one study area where wolves were absent in northern Michigan, USA. Using multi‐species occupancy modeling at species‐relevant spatial scales, we evaluated the hypothesis that increased wolf occurrence suppresses coyote (C. latrans) occurrence with corresponding increased red fox (Vulpes vulpes) occurrence mediated by land cover edge density, human presence, and temporal partitioning. Remote cameras recorded >600,000 images and included 6,370, 10,137, and 4,876 detections of wolves, coyotes, and …