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. 2025 Mar 27;15(4):e71025.
doi: 10.1002/ece3.71025. eCollection 2025 Apr.

Long-Term Demography of Spotted Hyena (Crocuta crocuta) in a Lion-Depleted but Prey-Rich Ecosystem

S Martens  1   2 , S Creel  1   3 , M S Becker  1   3 , G Spong  2   4 , D Smit  1   3 , E Dröge  1   5 , J M'soka  1   6 , B Mayani-Nkhoma  1 , T Mukula  1   7   8 , S Mwaba  1   8 , H Ndakala  9
Affiliations

Long-Term Demography of Spotted Hyena (Crocuta crocuta) in a Lion-Depleted but Prey-Rich Ecosystem

S Martens et al. Ecol Evol. .

Abstract

Interspecific competition has strongly shaped the evolution of large carnivore guilds. In Africa, the lion (Panthera leo) and spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta, hereafter hyena) exert direct and indirect competitive impacts on each other and on subordinate guild members. The impacts of competition on demography are complex and not well understood. With carnivore guilds now ubiquitously impacted by humans, disentangling the effects of interspecific competition and other drivers of hyena demography is important. Western Zambia's Greater Liuwa Ecosystem (GLE) provides a unique natural experiment where lions were functionally eliminated from the system. Hyenas are the apex predator, with an abundant prey base and low levels of human-hyena conflict. We measured GLE hyena survival and density using mark-recapture models fit to 10 years of data from 663 known individuals in 11 clans. GLE hyena densities were high, though slightly lower than other wildebeest-dominated systems, and stable over 10 years. Survival rates were high for all age-sex classes, and higher than those of other systems with high lion density, suggesting the possibility of competitive release from lion competition. These findings provide insights into long-term hyena demography in the absence of their top competitor but with an abundant prey base. As humans continue to alter ecosystems and fundamental ecological relationships such as interspecific competition, altered dynamics such as competitive release are likely to be widespread and should be a focus of future research.

Keywords: competitive release; ecosystem recovery; hyena survival; interspecific competition; large carnivore guild; population density; population dynamics; spotted hyena.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Adult female spotted hyena ( Crocuta crocuta ) in a seasonal pan. Survival across age and sex classes was high in this system with few lions and an abundant preybase.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Observed study population numbers (dashed) and population estimates (solid) from the closed capture model per year for dry season (A) and wet season (B). Error bars show 95% credible intervals.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Density estimates (D^) per season and per year for 2010–2019 including 95% credible intervals, following from the division of the through CJS models estimated population size (N^) by the 90th percentile isopleth KUD estimate of study area size (A^). The gray points and dashed gray line for wet season years 2011 and 2012 are estimated using mean study area size of the 2013–2019 wet seasons.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Smallest and largest study area estimates following from the 90th percentile isopleth KUD for the rain season (2015 and 2013; left) and the dry season (2011 and 2019; right).
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
(A) Posterior probability distributions for the mean probability of detection per 2‐month time bin. Posterior probability distributions for annual survival rates (φ) of hyena cubs (B), sub‐adults (C), and adults (D) as estimated by a Cormack–Jolly–Seber model fit to data spanning 2010–2010.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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