Conservation of predators – especially large carnivores and those that potentially pose threats to humans – can be controversial among stakeholders who must coexist with them. What is often overlooked, however, are the direct and indirect ecosystem services and disservices predators provide as a result of consumption of herbivores (“predation services”). We used a theoretical predator–prey–economic model to examine when predators are likely to provide a net service to society, by comparing services/disservices to a predator-free counterfactual scenario. We found that net predator services were strongly dependent on how per-capita services and disservices of predators and prey changed with abundance (ie assumed marginal value [MV] functions of service/disservice). We suggest that further empirical research is needed into MVs of services/disservices of wildlife, because transferring net services among locations – a common practice – is problematic unless MV functions are known. Rigorously quantifying services/disservices of predators could improve conservation and management outcomes by increasing effective communication to diverse stakeholders.

中文翻译：

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捕食服务：量化捕食者及其猎物的社会影响

保护食肉动物——尤其是大型食肉动物和那些可能对人类构成威胁的食肉动物——在必须与它们共存的利益相关者之间可能存在争议。然而，经常被忽视的是捕食者因食用食草动物而提供的直接和间接生态系统服务和损害（“捕食服务”）。我们使用理论上的捕食者-猎物-经济模型，通过将服务/损害与无捕食者的反事实情景进行比较，来检查捕食者何时可能为社会提供净服务。我们发现净捕食者服务在很大程度上取决于捕食者和猎物的人均服务和损害如何随丰度而变化（即假定服务/损害的边际价值 [MV] 函数）。我们建议需要对野生动物服务/损害的 MV 进行进一步的实证研究，因为在不同地点之间转移网络服务（一种常见做法）是有问题的，除非 MV 功能是已知的。严格量化捕食者的服务/损害可以通过增加与不同利益相关者的有效沟通来改善保护和管理结果。