Summary 1.We used long-term radio-telemetry data to investigate how Serengeti lions ( Panthera leo ) distribute themselves with respect to hunting opportunities. Specifically, we investigate whether lions hunt in areas where prey are easy to capture or where prey are locally abundant. 2. We used resource-selection functions (logistic regressions) to measure the location of kills/carcasses with respect to five different habitats: the view-sheds from large rocky outcrops, river confluences, woodland vegetation, erosion embankments and water sources. 3. As expected for a sit-and-wait predator, resting lions spent more time in areas with good cover. On a broad-scale, lions shifted their ranges according to the seasonal movement of prey, but at a finer scale (< 100 m) lions fed in areas with high prey 'catchability' rather than high prey density. Plains lions selected erosion embankments, view-sheds from rocky outcrops, and access to free water. Woodland lions tended to use erosion embankments, and woody vegetation. 4.The results emphasize the importance of fine-scale landscape and habitat features when assessing predator-prey theory and conservation.

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Protected areas provide major benefits for humans in the form of ecosystem services, but landscape degradation by human activity at their edges may compromise their ecological functioning. Using multiple lines of evidence from 40 years of research in the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, we find that such edge degradation has effectively “squeezed” wildlife into the core protected area and has altered the ecosystem’s dynamics even within this 40,000-square-kilometer ecosystem. This spatial cascade reduced resilience in the core and was mediated by the movement of grazers, which reduced grass fuel and fires, weakened the capacity of soils to sequester nutrients and carbon, and decreased the responsiveness of primary production to rainfall. Similar effects in other protected ecosystems worldwide may require rethinking of natural resource management outside protected areas.