Question

Isle Royale Workbook Question:

Increase in food available to moose resulted in the extinction of both the wolf and moose populatiion. Why is extinction more likely in this scenario (paradox of enrichment)?

Answer 1

In the study mentioned (Isle Royale-Wolf and moose), it is briefly discussed that an increase in food might cause a depletion in moose count and eventually leads to the extinction of wolfs.

The explanation says that moose are more prone to diseases like brain worm and winter ticks infection, this happens when there is a large number of moose in a particular area. When there is a sufficient amount of food available for the population, there will be more offsprings and eventually, the population size will increase. This increase in population size will make the moose community get infected easily with winter ticks or diseases like brain worm, this results in a slower activity of diseased moose, making it more prone and easy prey for the wolfs (discussed in,ontario.ca - factors affecting moose survival).

So, the suddenly increased moose population was seen getting more prone to infection and diseases and getting easily pred upon by wolves, and as the moose  prey more, the population size gets reduced leading to a shortage of food for wolves, and hence due to starvation the wolves either migrate to other area or starve to death.