Can Fear Alone Drive Animals to Extinction?
The mere sounds or smells of predators seem to hurt some prey’s chances for survival.
In the wild, a predator that eats too much of its prey can drive that species toward extinction. But there are other, less understood influences that predators can have on their prey’s survival. Take, for instance, odor: New research shows that the very smell of predators may be enough to increase the chances of a whole population of animals going extinct. Fear alone, it suggests, can shape the fate of a species.
Traditional ecological theory holds that smaller populations of any creature will usually breed more productively than
