Mineral Licks: An Overlooked Model System for Species Interactions

Mineral licks are deposits of minerals, salts, and/or clays that attract animals and serve as keystone resources in terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. Previous research on natural mineral licks has focused largely on characterizing the soil properties of the licks and describing the species that consume the minerals. Yet mineral licks are also hubs of species interactions, where predators hunt prey, diseases are spread, and social information is transferred. Here, we argue that mineral licks are an overlooked model system with massive potential for both characterizing biodiversity and studying species interactions. We review the current state of knowledge and identify gaps related to predator-prey interactions, disease transfer, social information, and population dynamics and mineral licks. In each area, we propose future research directions, including how to leverage emerging technologies to more fully understand the ecology of mineral licks. We highlight that new conservation technologies may be particularly powerful in studying species at mineral licks, including telemetry and tracking, LiDAR, environmental DNA, and camera traps. We also note that experimental approaches to mineral licks are currently severely underutilized in ecosystems around the world and offer enormous potential in understanding species interactions in our four highlighted areas. This synthesis provides a framework for testing hypotheses about the ecological importance of mineral licks as a keystone resource and shifts the focus to include more emphasis on current knowledge gaps.