Comparing Cats: A Discussion of Similarities & Differences

[Sully]

On plastic responses to novel environments from the book 'Unsolved Problems in Ecology':

"For example, frogs locally adapted to the genotoxic effects of increased ultraviolet type B radiations at higher elevations exhibit increased resistance to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pollutants that also have genotoxic effects (Marquis et.al 2009). We argue that considering the natural stressors to which organisms are currently adapted may help us predict which species may tolerate novel, anthropogenic stressors in a way current models may not."

This got me thinking of the many discussions of size in the LvT topic. Namely, based on Guate's data that on the species level they are very similar in weight (very slight edge to lions) whereas on the subspecies level tigers get clearly larger but also smaller, a larger range. A hypothesis was put forward that tigers have more plasticity in their size due to their natural history of multiple intermingling waves of expansions and retractions in range from small islands to large taiga expanses, and that this varied more than the history of lions ecologically (I should add I'm aware the Ngandong tiger was the largest and part sunda mixed with the mainland population, and that lions are plastic too but more so in pride size/composition). In other words, tigers exploit open space/ resources but tolerate constrained space/resources more than lions as it's in their genetic history to survive in more varied environments as individuals. I was wondering if there was any work on tiger size plasticity (a quick google scholar search came up blank) and/or how it differs from other cats? Reply