"Imagine a healthy forest, home to a variety of species: Birds are flitting between tree branches, salamanders are sliding through leaf litter, and wolves are tracking the scent of deer through the understory. Each of these animals has a role in the forest, and most ecologists would argue that losing any one of these species would be bad for the ecosystem as a whole."
"Unfortunately - whether due to habitat loss, overhunting or introduced species - humans have made some species disappear. At the same time, other species have adapted to us and spread more widely. As an ecologist, I'm curious about what these changes mean for ecosystems - can these newly arrived species functionally replace the species that used to be there? I studied this process in eastern North America, where some top predators have disappeared and a new predator has arrived."
"Wolves used to roam across every state east of the Mississippi River. But as the land was developed, many people viewed wolves as threats and wiped most of them out. These days, a mix of gray wolves and eastern wolves persist in Canada and around the Great Lakes, which I collectively refer to as northeastern wolves. There's also a small population of red wolves - a distinct and smaller species of wolf - on the coast of North Carolina."
Wolves once ranged across every state east of the Mississippi but were largely extirpated by development and persecution. Gray and eastern wolves now persist mainly in Canada and around the Great Lakes, and a small red wolf population remains on the North Carolina coast. Coyotes expanded east beginning around 1900 and now occupy nearly all of eastern North America. The functional role of coyotes was assessed by comparing diets and rates of killing large herbivores such as deer and moose. Published diet data were compiled by recording percentages of scat and stomach samples containing common food items. Differences in prey selection or kill rates could alter trophic interactions if newcomers do not replicate historical predator impacts.
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