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Carrion Availability in Space and Time

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Book cover Carrion Ecology and Management

Part of the book series: Wildlife Research Monographs ((WIREMO,volume 2))

Abstract

Although carrion ecology has received a great deal of scientific attention in recent years, carrion supply is still poorly described in most ecosystems. Animals die from many causes and their carcasses are exploited by a wide array of scavengers and decomposers. In terrestrial ecosystems, carrion is produced naturally at an annual rate of tens to hundreds of kg/km2, although this figure may increase by several orders of magnitude in areas where living animals are concentrated, such as coastal ecosystems with important marine mammal colonies and the breeding grounds of semelparous fish. Mortality rates, cause of death, and species and individual identity of carcasses greatly influence how much carrion is available to scavengers. For instance, in populations characterized by a stationary age distribution, terrestrial megaherbivores, marine mammals, and other large animals contribute substantially to the total carrion biomass production in their ecosystems. After carcasses are produced, other factors such as carcass location, weather conditions, and biotic interactions may influence their availability to scavengers. Overall, the spatiotemporal variation in carrion availability is inevitably linked to the distribution of animals and the places and periods where they are more vulnerable to mortality. Also, although carcasses in terrestrial ecosystems are rarely moved during their consumption, carcasses in aquatic ecosystems frequently sink, float, or follow the currents. In relation to time, carrion production may experience strong fluctuations both within and between years. The growing field of carrion ecology, including the evolution of scavenging behaviour and carrion management, would benefit greatly from a better understanding of how much, where, and when carrion is produced and becomes available to scavengers.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biología Aplicada, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Alicante, Spain

    Marcos Moleón

  2. Department of Conservation Biology, Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC), Seville, Spain

    Marcos Moleón & Ainara Cortés-Avizanda

  3. Department of Zoology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Marcos Moleón

  4. Institute of Nature Conservation, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków, Poland

    Nuria Selva

  5. Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Maria Martina Quaggiotto & David M. Bailey

  6. Animal Ecology and Demography Group, IMEDEA (CSIC-UIB), Palma de Mallorca, Spain

    Ainara Cortés-Avizanda

  7. US Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services, National Wildlife Research Center, Sandusky, OH, USA

    Travis L. DeVault

Authors
  1. Marcos Moleón
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  2. Nuria Selva
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  3. Maria Martina Quaggiotto
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  4. David M. Bailey
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  5. Ainara Cortés-Avizanda
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  6. Travis L. DeVault
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Cambio Global (CIBC-UAM), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Pedro P. Olea

  2. Centre for Functional Ecology (CFE), Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Patricia Mateo-Tomás

  3. Departamento de Biología Aplicada, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Elche, Spain

    José Antonio Sánchez-Zapata

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Moleón, M., Selva, N., Quaggiotto, M.M., Bailey, D.M., Cortés-Avizanda, A., DeVault, T.L. (2019). Carrion Availability in Space and Time. In: Olea, P., Mateo-Tomás, P., Sánchez-Zapata, J. (eds) Carrion Ecology and Management. Wildlife Research Monographs, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16501-7_2

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