Thanks to humans, old school apex predators are struggling to hold onto their perch at the top of the food chain. And now a new class of adaptable mesopredators are remaking the ecosystems they take over.

To see song lyrics, click "CC" on the video or, for an annotated version, click here: https://genius.com/14774391

If you liked this week’s video, you might also like: ScienceWithTom goes deep on the science in this video with ecologist Alex McInturff: https://youtu.be/TJcgtqjj-yo

LEARN MORE

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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:

• Food Web: the feeding relationships between animals that determine how energy and nutrients are spread throughout an ecosystem.
• Trophic Level: a hierarchical level in an ecosystem made up of organisms that share the same function in the food web.
• Apex predator: the animals at the top trophic level that feed on animals and organisms below them.
• Mesopredator: a member of a mid-ranking trophic level that preys on animals and organisms in lower trophic levels and occasionally gets eat by apex predators.
• Mesopredator Release: an ecological phenomenon in which mesopredators rapidly grow in population once apex predators are removed from an ecosystem.
• Trophic Cascade: a series of dramatic changes in an ecosystem often triggered by mesopredator release.

CREDITS

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Script Writer: Tom McFadden Script Editor: David Goldenberg Video Illustrator: Qingyang Chen Video Director: David Goldenberg, Emily Elert Video Narrator: Emily Elert, Tom McFadden With Contributions From: Henry Reich, Alex Reich, Kate Yoshida, Ever Salazar, Emily Elert, Peter Reich Music by: Nathaniel Schroeder

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REFERENCES

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Darimont, C., Fox, C., Bryan, H., and Reimchen, C. (2015). The Unique Ecology of Human Predators. Science. 349: 6250 (858-860). Retrieved from: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6250/858

Prugh, L., Stoner, C., Epps, C., Bean, W., Ripple, W., Laliberte, A. and Brashares, J. (2009). The Rise of the Mesopredator. BioScience. 59:9 (779-791). Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/bio.2009.59.9.9

Baum, J. and Worm, B. (2009). Cascading Top-down Effects of Changing Oceanic Predator Abundances (2009). Journal of Animal Ecology. 78: 699-714. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19298616

McInturff, Alex. (2018). Personal Communication. Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at University of California, Berkeley.