Small Carnivores - Evolution, Ecology, Behaviour and Conservation

This book focuses on the 232 species of the mammalian Order Carnivora with an average body mass < 21.5 kg. Small carnivores inhabit virtually all of the Earth''s ecosystems, adopting terrestrial, semi-fossorial, (semi-)arboreal or (semi-)aquatic lifestyles. They occupy multiple trophic levels and therefore play important roles in the regulation of ecosystems, such as natural pest control, seed dispersal and nutrient cycling. In areas where humans have extirpated large carnivores, small carnivores may become the dominant predators, which may increase their abundance ("mesopredator release") to the point that they can sometimes destabilize communities, drive local extirpations and reduce overall biodiversity. On the other hand, one third of the world''s small carnivores are threatened or near threatened with extinction. This results from regionally burgeoning human populations'' industrial and agricultural activit