Scientific study of the population cycles of the snowshoe hare and its predator, the lynx, has revealed that ________. Question 9 options: A) predation is the dominant factor affecting prey population cycling B) hares and lynx are so mutually dependent that each species cannot survive without the other C) the hare population is r-selected and the lynx population is K-selected D) both hare and lynx population sizes are affected mainly by abiotic factors

Predation is a type of interaction between species where one species called ‘predator’ uses another species, the ‘prey’, as a source of food. Within an ecosystem, the number of predators and prey may vary over time in cycles of time (in these cases, the population cycles of both species are closely linked). In consequence, predation is a density-dependent factor. In the case of the snowshoe hare and its predator, the lynx, when the number of predators is too high, the number of prey drastically decreases. Subsequently, this leads to the decrease of predators that leave their home range (they don’t have enough food to survive), thereby the snowshoe hare population increases again until the peak of the population cycle (carrying capacity), and so successively.