When it comes to choosing which other species to hang out with, wild animals quite literally change their minds with the weather, a new University of Liverpool study reveals.
When it comes to choosing which other species to hang out with, wild animals quite literally change their minds with the weather, a new University of Liverpool study reveals.
The findings, which are published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, could help conservationists better predict the risk of extinction faced by endangered species.
“In the wild, a species always exists as part of a community of other species which affect its survival. These interactions are crucial when it comes to predicting extinction risk: if we focus only on single species in isolation we may get it very wrong,” explains the leader of the research team Dr Jakob Bro-Jørgensen from the Institute of Integrative Biology.
In this study the researchers aimed to uncover if species alter their preference for different social partners when their environment changes – a central question to forecast how current environmental changes caused by humans are likely to affect animal populations and communities.
Read more at University of Liverpool
Image: Masai Mara plains in East Africa. (Credit: Dr. Jakob Bro-Jørgensen)
