Roles for the Canidae in food webs reviewed: Where do they fit?

A continental schematic showing relative trophic positions (top, middle, bottom) of the 37 species of the family Canidae. Numbers are canid species in alphabetical order from the text and their IUCN status is shown by coloured shading, with white being of “least concern” and darkest being “critically endangered” (after Woodroffe and Sillero-Zubiri, 2012). Non-canid predators, including humans, are excluded for simplicity and some species, e.g. 5, 6, 36 and 37, occupy two or three trophic positions. The green & brown arrows at left (Interaction vector) represent the non-scalar, strength and directions of network interactions between canids at the three trophic levels, which are presently unquantified (?).255