Ecology 6th Edition by Charles Krebs

تمرين 6

In western North American grasslands, bison (Bison bison) and prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicimws) are considered keystone herbivores. What changes would you predict in the plant community of these grasslands if you set up an experiment in which bison were excluded from some plots, prairie dogs from other plots, and both species from a third set of plots. Fahnestock and Detling (2002) did this experiment for three years and got no vegetation changes in any of the plots. Is this sufficient information to reject the idea that these herbivores are keystone species?