Can consumers in a food chain thin out an overpopulated species, and how?

Question

Can consumers in a food chain thin out an overpopulated species, and how?

Answer 1

This is an automatic feedback. Most consumers are opportunistic feeders. When one source of food becomes rarer or a second becomes more abundant, predators switch to the second because it requires less energy to find and catch the second source. The same thing occurs with herbivores. Why hunt through a field for one rarer species of grass when another is all around you?

Answer 2

A couple of ways possibly. The consumer can move to a new area of where food is high and predators are low. therefore, the consumer is consuming the species faster than it is being consumed itself.

second is that the predators of the consumers are thinned by outside influences (ie humans) therefore they are not dieing at the same rate as before, allowing them to consume for a longer period of time (or faster).

Answer 3

Americans ATE ALL the passenger pigeons that used to blot out the sun with their numbers.  Humans ATE ALL the Doh-Doh birds that used to live on islands in the Pacific.  We almost wiped out the Buffaloes,in an attempt to destroy the food source for the Native Peoples.  How? Why? GREED and IGNORANCE!

Answer 4

There are many factors that have an effect natures balance, and since you aren't asking for all of them, I will give one example that I hope helps answer your question. In Massachusetts there have not been any Timber Wolves in the wild as residents in over a century. Earlier in the year one had been discovered. Unfortunately with local law enforcement not knowing that it was a rare and long displaced animal from our ecosystem, they shot it. There have been surges in populations like deer and wild turkeys and that has brought in coyotes and other predatory species. Having predators where previously there were none will help to thin out an animal, in this case prey, populations.

So little dogs and cats beware! There have been growing cases of "lost" pets!

Googling one of Massachusetts major newspapers like the Boston Globe or a Boston.com search should provide some info on the timber wolf shot in MA.

Answer 5

this is one reason that hunting is a good idea. as long as hunters are responsible with the game they take, and the state is responsible in how many licenses they issue, healthy herd populations can be maintained for years. it is also a good idea to allow the hunting of predators as well. many years ago colorado eliminated bear hunting under pressure from environmentalists. a few years later there are too many bears in the wild, so many in fact that the bears started wandering around in the towns and cities causing great concern that bear attacks would become common place. in fact many pets were eaten by the bears, and many people were attacked by the bears in their own houses. once bear hunting was reinstated, bear populations were reduced to a healthy sustainable level, and bear attacks in the cities and towns were virtually eliminated.

thinning out over populated herds is a goo thing, but again we have to be responsible when doing it.