Tiger-Lion Coexistence in Eurasia between Middle Pleistocene and Holocene Epochs

[Sanju]

(04-27-2019, 12:39 AM)smedz Wrote: Ah yes, and don't forget, another way predators coexist is to hunt at different times of the day. Example, cheetahs and painted dogs are diurnal animals while lions, leopards, and hyenas are night hunters. The cheetahs and dogs hunt during the day to avoid lions and hyenas.

Of course to avoid direct competition, animals adapt different type of strategies not only them, birds too employ different foraging time periods in a day and so on many kinds are there, Plants bloom or mature at different hours to avoid cross pollination/self pollination.

@smedz

(04-27-2019, 12:39 AM)smedz Wrote: Granted, lions and tigers didn't avoid each other by doing that, but i thought that would be interesting.

The same way lions, leopards and hyenas doing; Tigers, leopards, Indian wolf and Striped Hyena doing ...

Albeit, Tigers are thought to be mainly nocturnal animals and crepuscular predators, ("What is a Tiger? Ecology and Behaviour") but in areas where humans are absent, remote-controlled, hidden camera traps recorded them hunting in daylight. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009smrg)

Where as Lion is usually more diurnal than other big cats, but when persecuted it adapts to being active at night and at twilight (crepuscular) or at dawn and dusk.

Lions have natural predator "competitors" but not any territorial rivals other than conspecies. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion#Predator_competition)
The same goes for Tigers. (Tiger and it's Natural Competitors)

In the past, lions and tigers reportedly "competed in the wilderness", and didn't have territorial conflicts between them, where their ranges overlapped in Eurasia. Mlekopitajuščie Sovetskogo Soiuza. Moskva: Vysšaia Škola, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_vers...wilderness, Tiger and Lion)

And in case of Tiger_lion gause competitive exclusion principle or gause principle didn't occur even they had identical niches (required identical resources and habitats) they would attempt to live in exactly the same area and would compete for exactly the same resources. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitio...erspecific) It is because they have adapted some strategy to avoid competitive exclusion. That's why they coexisted for many years in Eurasia.

Gaur and Banteng coexist despite their direct competition or niche overlap and being species of same genus. So, if animals don't adapt and coevolve (According to evolutionary theory, this competition within and between species for resources is important in natural selection) to figure out how to live and avoid direct competition with fellow natural competitors it results in exclusion or extinction of inferior or weaker competition, if not they can coexist.

They are many evolutionary strategies to mitigate competition like large amount of offspring or growth rate, different habitat preferences, efficient mechanism to utilize resources, different foraging timings or lifestyle etc., etc.., (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitio...strategies) Reply