Table 2. Puma dominance and equality.
Evidence of (1) puma dominance over and (2) equality to sympatric apex carnivores, the number of sources (n) supporting the conjecture, and the citations of the sources.
| Species pairing | n | NLC | LC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dominance | |||
| Puma dominant over wolf | 5 | – | Direct killing of wolves: Schmidt & Gunson (1985), Ruth (2004a), Mexican Wolf Blue Range Adaptive Management Oversight Committee and Interagency Field Team (2005), Jimenez et al. (2008); LM Elbroch & HB Quigley, 2018, unpublished data (1 subadult wolf killed and consumed by an adult female puma) |
| Puma dominant over grizzly bear | 0 | – | – |
| Puma dominant over black bear | 4 | – | Direct killing of black bears: Cunningham, Gustavson & Ballard (1999), Elbroch et al. (2014), Nichols (2017); LM Elbroch & HB Quigley, 2018, unpublished data (adult female puma kills and consumes black bear cub of the year) |
| Puma dominant over jaguar | 0 | - | – |
| Puma dominant over coyote | 13 | Spatial and temporal displacement of coyotes: Koehler & Hornocker (1991), Wang, Allen & Wilmers (2015), Mahoney (2017) | Direct killing of coyotes Ackerman, Lindzey & Hemker (1984), Boyd & O’Gara (1985), Arjo (1998), Murphy et al. (1998), Koehler & Hornocker (1991), Atwood (2006), Ruth & Buotte (2007), De la Torre & De la Riva (2009), Knopff et al. (2010), Lowrey, Elbroch & Broberg (2016); LM Elbroch & HB Quigley, 2018, unpublished data (multiple pumas killing and consuming multiple coyotes) |
| Puma dominant over maned wolf | 2 | – | Direct killing of maned wolves: Mazzolli (2009), De Oliveira & Pereira (2014) |
| Equality | |||
| Jaguar and puma equal | 10 | Inferred because spatial/temporal activity patterns were similar: Taber et al. (1997), Scognamillo et al. (2003), Foster, Harmsen & Doncaster (2010), Davis, Kelly & Stauffer (2011), Foster et al. (2013), Hernández-SaintMartín (2013), Gutiérrez-González & López-González (2017) Inferred because diet patterns were dissimilar: Scognamillo et al. (2003), Novack et al. (2005), De Azevedo (2008), Hernández-SaintMartín (2015) | – |
| Maned wolf and puma equal | 1 | Inferred because spatial/temporal activity patterns were similar: Trolle et al. (2007) | – |
Notes.
- NLC
- non-lethal competition
- LC
- lethal competition