Claim: Wolves must be keystone species because they have a significant impact on the rest of their ecosystem.
The land area that became Yellowstone National Park originally had an important population of wolves. It seemed that the wolves helped control the populations of multiple other species in the area. This included the population of elk, which the wolves hunted, killed, and ate. When wolves were overhunted and disappeared from the park, the populations sizes of many other species changed dramatically, also. When wolves were later successfully reintroduced, populations of other species changed again, this time going back to more historically reasonable numbers. Many people believe the reintroduction of wolves helped to restore the proper population levels for a wide variety of species, including elk, beavers, birds, and even certain species of trees and shrubs. The presence or absence of the wolves seemed to have a bigger impact on the rest of the ecosystem than you might normally expect from just one species.
Claim: Wolves must be ________ because they have ________ on the rest of their ecosystem.
1 answer