How fear drastically shapes ecosystems: Best ideas of the century

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Understanding the “landscape of fear” that predators create in their environments has helped us uncover just how drastically humans have upended the natural world When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, the effects were dramatic. Among other things, elk numbers fell far more than expected. It turns out that the mere fear of wolves was having a big impact. In places where elk thought wolves might be present, they spent much more time looking out for them, leaving less time to feed. In a paper published in 2001, biologist John Laundré, who died in 2021, used the term “landscape of fear” to describe this effect. The idea wasn’t entirely new. Previous lab experiments had shown that fear of predators alone can affect prey. Yet the prevailing view at the time was that predators affect wild prey populations only through direct predation.
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