Population regulation of Serengeti Wildebeeest: a test of the food hypothesis
- 1 January 1985
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Nature in Oecologia
- Vol. 65 (2) , 266-268
- https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00379227
Abstract
The food hypothesis proposes that density dependent mortality regulates populations through food shortage. For Serengeti wildebeest, we found an empirical relationship between dry season adult mortality rate, density and food supply. This relationship predicted that: (1) the population would stabilize between 1.0 and 1.5 million animals, (2) dry season mortality would be density dependent and sufficient to account for the levelling off of this large ungulate population. Recent observations have tested and confirmed these predictions.This publication has 9 references indexed in Scilit:
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