Mel E. Sunquist’s research while affiliated with University of Florida and other places

What is this page?


This page lists works of an author who doesn't have a ResearchGate profile or hasn't added the works to their profile yet. It is automatically generated from public (personal) data to further our legitimate goal of comprehensive and accurate scientific recordkeeping. If you are this author and want this page removed, please let us know.

Publications (6)


Wild Cats of the World
  • Article

July 2003

·

498 Reads

·

1,287 Citations

Journal of Wildlife Management

Alan Woolf

·

Mel Sunquist

·

Fiona Sunquist


Ecological Constraints on Predation by Large Felids

January 1989

·

145 Reads

·

282 Citations

The evolutionary fitness of any predator, whether it is a spider catching insects or a lion hunting buffalo, depends largely on the quality and quantity of its diet. Predatory strategies are shaped and refined by natural selection to maximize nutrient intake within the bounds of a wide range of ecological constraints (e.g., prey density, habitat) that may differ dramatically for the same species at the extremes of its geographical distribution. The basic task of finding and gathering food under these constraints fundamentally affects a species’ spacing patterns and the structure of its social systems.



Sex-ratio manipulation in the common opossum

November 1986

·

137 Reads

·

153 Citations

Nature

The idea that offspring sex ratio is affected by parental capacity for reproductive investment was first developed by Trivers and Willard1 and later elaborated by others2-6. According to this hypothesis, if the amount of parental investment7 differentially affects the expected reproductive success of offspring depending on offspring gender, then parents capable of exceptionally large investment should bias reproductive investment toward the sex affected most. For most polygynous mammals, male reproductive success is expected to be most enhanced by exceptionally large investment1,8, but observational field studies and laboratory experiments have either supported9-13 or contradicted3,14-16 this conditional sex-allocation hypothesis. We have performed the first experimental field study specifically to examine this hypothesis, and find that the female common opossum (Didelphis marsupialis), whose capacity for parental investment was artificially enhanced by dietary supplementation, produces male-biased sex ratios, in contrast to the unbiased ratios produced by control females.


Tiger Moon: Tracking the Great Cats in Nepal

25 Reads

·

12 Citations

Tiger Moon is the powerful, poetic story of the Sunquists' two years studying tigers in Nepal—traveling by elephant, avoiding a rhino attack, and learning to recognize individual tigers by roar. A new afterword tells the story of promising efforts to reconnect fractured Nepalese tiger habitats.

Citations (6)


... Females with kittens have higher nutritional demands due to raising offspring and extended periods without ungulate prey can affect reproductive success (Walton et al., 2017). Additionally, the significant differences in inter-kill intervals between adult males and single adult females could be connected to the differences in body size and the greater movements of males, probably linked to territorial defence, which increases their energetic needs (Sunquist & Sunquist, 2002). ...

Reference:

Ecological and intrinsic drivers of foraging parameters of Eurasian lynx at a continental scale
Wild Cats of the World
  • Citing Book
  • January 2002

... inter-kill interval, searching and handling times) can vary according to multiple factors, such as availability, seasonality and distribution of prey (Elbroch et al., 2016), density of predators, presence of competitors and kleptoparasites (Smith et al., 2015;Zimmermann et al., 2015) and individual variability (Pettorelli et al., 2015). Understanding the impact of these factors can reveal how predators handle different environmental conditions to obtain the necessary energy input (Merrill et al., 2010;Sunquist & Sunquist, 1989). Since many solitary large predators tend to predate on large prey (similar size or larger than themselves, although prey size selection can vary greatly; see Bates-Mundell et al., 2024) and thus feed on a carcass for several days, kleptoparasitism by scavengers can also importantly affect the predator's feeding behaviour and kill rates (i.e. ...

Ecological Constraints on Predation by Large Felids
  • Citing Chapter
  • January 1989

... Within each study site, we established 12 camera locations, separated by at least 400 m. Based upon the published home range size of our target taxa [67][68][69] , this inter-camera distance makes it reasonable to treat each location as an independent sample of the resident carnivore community. ...

Movement Patterns and Home Range in the Common Opossum (Didelphis marsupialis)
  • Citing Article
  • February 1987

Journal of Mammalogy

... With over 70% of their diet composed of meat, felids are considered hypercarnivores (Van Valkenburgh, 1989), characterized by many specialized anatomical features for hunting, such as curved and retractile claws, which help seizing and manipulating their prey (Gonyea, 1978;Gonyea & Ashwood, 1975;Sunquist & Sunquist, 2002). ...

Wild Cats of the World
  • Citing Article
  • July 2003

Journal of Wildlife Management

... Something similar occurred in French Guiana with the pioneering works led by Charles-Dominique et al. (1981) and then Atramentowicz (1986). Indeed, the 1980s saw the start of dedicated studies focusing on ecology and biogeography in South America, with other relevant research projects scattered across the continent, such as those of August (1981), Austad and Sunquist (1986), Cordero andNicolas (1987), andO'Connell (1989) in Venezuela. At that time, opossums of the genus Didelphis were usually the focus of ecological (or other biological) studies (see Fig. 2 in ▶ Chap. ...

Sex-ratio manipulation in the common opossum
  • Citing Article
  • November 1986

Nature

... Following their local extinction, Tigers were reintroduced in Panna Tiger Reserve (PTR) in 2009 20 , with comprehensive monitoring of the founder individuals prioritized to ensure the success of this reintroduction 21 . Tigers are solitary 22,23 , though they engage in social interactions during kill sharing 7 and mating 24 . Soon after reintroduction, founders started to explore PTR and interact with each other. ...

Tiger Moon: Tracking the Great Cats in Nepal
  • Citing Article