When Good Animals Love Bad Habitats: Ecological Traps and the Conservation of Animal Populations

Abstract: The concept of the ecological trap, a low‐quality habitat that animals prefer over other available habitats of higher quality, has appeared in the ecological literature irregularly for over 30 years, but the topic has received relatively little attention, and evidence for traps remains largely anecdotal. Recently, however, the ecological trap concept has been the subject of a flurry of theoretical activity that is likely to raise its profile substantially, particularly in conservation biology. Ecological trap theory suggests that, under most circumstances, the presence of a trap in a landscape will drive a local population to extinction. A number of empirical studies, almost all of birds, suggest the…

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  Northern Arizona University
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  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration