Thus, although differences in food abundance and habitat have been shown to affect
intraspecific variation in reproductive strategies of canids, other factors such as mortality from predators might also affect reproductive strategies of canids, at least under certain conditions. In fact, some researchers have suggested that mortality from larger canids might contribute
to variations in social systems of small canids (Voigt & Macdonald 1984; Cavallini 1996), although this hypothesis has not been tested.