Animal foraging and competition are defined by the partitioning of three primary niche axes: space, time, and resources. Human disturbance is rapidly altering the spatial and temporal niches of animals, but the impact of humans on resource consumption and partitioning—arguably the most important niche axis—is poorly understood. We assessed resource consumption and trophic niche partitioning as a function of human disturbance at the individual, population, and community levels using stable isotope analysis of 684 carnivores from seven communities in North America. We detected significant responses to human disturbance at all three levels of biological organization: individual carnivores consumed more human food subsidies in disturbed landscapes, leading to significant increases in trophic niche width and trophic niche overlap among species ranging from mesocarnivores to apex predators. Trophic niche partitioning is the primary mechanism regulating coexistence in many communities, and our results indicate that humans fundamentally alter resource niches and competitive interactions among terrestrial consumers. Among carnivores, niche overlap can trigger interspecific competition and intraguild predation, while the consumption of human foods significantly increases human–carnivore conflict. Our results suggest that human disturbances, especially in the form of food subsidies, may threaten carnivores by increasing the probability of both interspecific competition and human–carnivore conflict. Ultimately, these findings illustrate a potential decoupling of predator–prey dynamics, with impacts likely cascading to populations, communities, and ecosystems.

动物的觅食和竞争是通过划分三个主要的利基轴来定义的：空间，时间和资源。人为干扰正在迅速改变动物的时空利基，但是人们对人类对资源消耗和分区（可能是最重要的利基轴）的影响知之甚少。通过对来自北美七个社区的684食肉动物进行稳定同位素分析，我们评估了资源消耗和营养小生境分区在个人，人口和社区水平上与人为干扰的关系。我们在生物组织的所有三个层次上都发现了对人为干扰的重要响应：食肉动物在受干扰的景观中消耗了更多的人类食品补贴，导致中生食肉动物到先端捕食者之间的营养位生态位宽度显着增加，营养位生态位重叠。营养位生态位分配是调节许多社区共存的主要机制，我们的研究结果表明，人类从根本上改变了资源优势和地面消费者之间的竞争相互作用。在食肉动物中，生态位重叠会触发种间竞争和公会内捕食，而食用人类食物则大大增加了人类与食肉动物之间的冲突。我们的结果表明，人为干扰，尤其是以食品补贴的形式，可能会增加种间竞争和人与肉食动物之间的冲突，从而威胁食肉动物。最终，这些发现说明了捕食者与猎物动力学之间的潜在耦合，