Personal Opinion & Speculations

[LonePredator]

(12-29-2021, 02:48 PM)Spalea Wrote: If the tigers were going to live in the African savannahs, they should have to adapt in this new biotop for them. Yes !
But we only consider this problem by the means of the tigers potentialities. A new huge predator going on stage isn't an insignificant event for the whole native predators "community". And especially the apex predator of this biotop for a long time: the lions.
The tigers would have to adapt in order to thrive in the savannahs by becoming social predators ? The lions would have to adapt too in front of an opponent they didn't know before. And same thing as concerns the other social predators: hyenas and African wild dogs.
It would be anything but an one-sided conflict.

No, I mostly disagree, Lions would not undergo as much change as Tigers would unless they continue to coexist for a very very long time (which is unlikely). Just think about it. For Tigers, it's a new habitat, new rival(s), new prey, new conditions. The whole thing is completely separate from their home, the Indian forests

For Lions, you can't say the same to such a degree, all they get is a new rival, although more threatening than any other rival they have had but it still can't be a cause for such huge change.

With that said, Tigers would undergo a lot more changes than Lions would. Also a simple behavioral change such as becoming more social would take a lot less time to occur than let's say a change in morphology (which the lions would require in order to compete with Tigers)

And in one case where they could continue to coexist for a long period of time (which is the only case I can think of) then the Lions could potentially change.

The Lions would grow smaller in size as their prey supply could get cut in half by the Tigers (depending on how many Tigers) and also because Lions aren't able to take the largest prey like Tigers can. So whoever fails to compete would have to grow smaller in size and that would likely be the lion for the reasons I mentioned.

Now you might ask why wouldn't Tigers grow smaller. My answer to that is because if Tigers do become social then that makes them the top predators of the savannah and they also are seemingly capable of taking larger prey than Lions.

And in such cases since the lions wouldn't be able to compete with Tigers, they would have to grow smaller in size so that they need less food and that would also allow them to avoid competition with Tigers Reply