Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Predators affect competitors’ coexistence through fear effects

Predators are often thought to structure ecological communities by consuming competitively dominant species, which promotes the coexistence of species. But an alternative mechanism might involve the effects of fear.
  1. Oswald J. Schmitz

    1. Oswald J. Schmitz is in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

The Caribbean and its surrounding region harbour an incredible diversity of anole lizard species1. They come in many shapes and sizes, and occupy a variety of places in shrub and tree habitats. This separation in morphology and the use of space reflects the lizards’ varied functional roles on the island and in the mainland coastal ecosystems that they inhabit1. For example, some green, small-bodied, short-limbed species of anole occupy the canopies of shrubs and trees, nimbly traversing twigs and branches to pluck insect prey2. Other, brown anole species perch lower down on the trunks, relying on their long, stocky legs to help them jump to the ground to sprint after insects2. There are numerous theories as to how such ecological and morphological diversity arises, and in a paper in Nature, Pringle et al.3 present the results of a long-term field study into the effect of predators on anole lizards. Intriguingly, their conclusion is not one that would normally be considered in relation to the role of predators.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 570, 43-44 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01712-7

References

  1. Losos, J. B. Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adaptive Radiation of Anoles (Univ. California Press, 2009).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Hermann, N. C. et al. Carib. Nat. 50, 1–17 (2018).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Pringle, R. M. et al. Nature 570, 58–64 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Schluter, D. The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation (Oxford Univ. Press, 2000).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Levin, S. A. Am. Nat. 104, 413–423 (1970).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. McPeek, M. A. Am. Nat. 148, S124–S138 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Chesson, P. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 31, 343–366 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Sommers, P. & Chesson, P. Am. Nat. 193, E132–E148 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Schmitz, O. F1000Res. 6, 1767 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Schoener, T. W. Science 331, 426–429 (2011).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Siepielski, A. M. & McPeek, M. A. Ecology 91, 3153–3164 (2010).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Losos, J. B. et al. Science 314, 1111 (2006).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. McPeek, M. A. Am. Nat. 183, E1–E16 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links