Data from: Are wild prey sufficient for the top predators in the lowland protected areas of Nepal?

A balanced equilibrium between carnivores and their prey is crucial for
maintaining ecosystem sustainability. In this study, we applied the
predator-prey power law equation to assess the balance between the biomass
densities of carnivores and their wild prey within Nepal’s lowland
protected areas during 2013, 2018, and 2022. The estimated value of the
power-law exponent k for predator-prey biomass was 0.71 (95% CI =
0.39-1.05), indicating an approximate three-fold increase in predator
biomass density for every five-fold increase in prey biomass density.
Consequently, this creates a systematically bottom-heavy predator-prey
biomass pyramid. This finding, consistent with the k=3/4 trophic biomass
scaling across ecosystems, suggests that predator biomass is
proportionally sustained by prey biomass, indicating a balance between top
predators and their wild prey in Nepal's lowland protected areas. We
further demonstrated it is possible to retain the overall power law
exponent while jointly measuring intraguild competition between two
predators with canonical correlation analysis. This understanding opens
avenues for future research directed toward unraveling the factors that
drive these consistent growth patterns in ecological communities.