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In short terms: They don't. However, in many cases there are clear logical deductions to make based on previous experiments or observations in similar communities. Sometimes they also do field experiments where they fence off areas, keeping the predators out and "seeing what happens".

You should also be aware that predators aren't always necessary for prey to maintain healthy populations, but rather that this can be the case in certain communities, especially ones affected by top-down control (e.g. predator numbers decline, their prey boosts in population, the plants they eat get grazed to small numbers, another type of plant gains dominance, and the plant they used to eat gets outcompeted by the new plant, the grazing animals no longer have any food and get a severe population reduction due to starvation).

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