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77 results for “prey size”
Data from: Environmental correlates of molluscan predator-prey body size in the northern Gulf of Mexico
<p>The Mississippi River watershed drains 40% of the continental United States, and the tremendous primary productivity in the adjacent north-central Gulf of Mexico has created one of the most extensive dead zones on Earth. In contrast, smaller watersheds deliver less nutrients to the northeastern Gulf, and consequently productivity is limited and hypoxia is uncommon. How has variation in primary productivity, oxygen availability, and sea surface temperature, affected coastal food webs? Here, we investigate environmental controls on the size of molluscan predators and prey in the northern Gulf of Mexico using Holocene death assemblages. Linear mixed models indicate that bivalve size and the frequency of drilling predation are affected by dissolved oxygen concentrations; drilling frequency declines with declining oxygen, whereas bivalve size increases. In contrast, sea surface temperature is positively associated with the size of molluscan predators and prey. Net primary productivity contributes relatively little to predator or prey size, and predator-to-prey size ratios do not vary consistently with environmental conditions across the northern Gulf. Larger bivalves in areas of oxygen limitation may be due to decreased predation pressure and consequently greater prey longevity. The larger size of bivalves and predatory gastropods in warmer waters may reflect enhanced growth under these conditions, provided dissolved oxygen concentrations exceed a minimum threshold. Holocene death assemblages can be used to test long-standing hypotheses regarding environmental controls on predator-prey body size distributions through geologic time and provide baselines for assessing the ongoing effects of anthropogenic eutrophication and warming on coastal food webs.</p>
Data from: Influence of intra- and interspecific variation in predator-prey body size ratios on trophic interaction strengths
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Data from: Predatory birds and ants partition caterpillar prey by body size and diet breadth
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Assessing cooper’s hawk (<em>Astur cooperii</em>) and sharp-shinned hawk (<em>Accipiter striatus</em>) prey size and species composition using citizen science data
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Data from: Parental overproduction allows siblicidal bird to adjust brood size to climate-driven prey variation
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Data from: Environmental correlates of molluscan predator-prey body size in the northern Gulf of Mexico
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Data from: Prey movement, size, and glossiness interact to impact praying mantid attack behaviours
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Prey size mediates interference competition and predation dynamics in a large carnivore community
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Data from: The sources of variation for individual prey-to-predator size ratios
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FIGURE 3 in Maximum Bite Force and Prey Size of Tyrannosaurus rex and Their Relationships to the Inference of Feeding Behavior
FIGURE 3 Cranial morphology and jaw adductor musculature. Differences in the posterior width of the skull, relative to the tooth rows, may be constrained, together with tooth shape, by biting strategies such as crushing or penetration. The rather broadly-set tooth rows of Allosaurus fragilis (illustration modified after Madsen, 1976) appear to provide most theropods with a sufficiently concentrated bite force to facilitate lethal, penetrating bites. The expanded posterior part of the skull of Tyrannosaurus rex allowed for jaw adductor muscles with more cross-sectional area (illustration modified after Osborn, 1912). This suggests an atypically high bite force in this taxon, compared to most other theropods. The combination of a high bite force with comparatively broad, conical teeth implies adaptation for crushing the relatively greater mass of flesh and/or bones of large prey. This suggests that T. rex may have fed in significantly different ways from the majority of large theropods.
FIGURE 1 in Maximum Bite Force and Prey Size of Tyrannosaurus rex and Their Relationships to the Inference of Feeding Behavior
FIGURE 1 Effect of prey size on penetrating bites. Non-vital tissues of prey animals, such as integument and muscle, serve as barriers to predators seeking to inflict lethal damage on their prey. Assuming some minimum depth of penetration is required for a lethal bite, the depth of tissue through which a predator's teeth must penetrate increases linearly with increasing prey size. However, frictional resistance between flesh and teeth increases more rapidly than this. For a simple cone, frictional resistance increases with the square of the linear increase in depth of penetration. This results, for example, in four times the amount of frictional resistance to penetration that is twice as deep. A subconical tooth of Tyrannosaurus rex was modeled by computer and its engaged surface area was calculated for bites to 2 and 4 cm depth. In the latter case, the surface area of the tooth engaged is approximately three times that for a 2cmbite, due to the moderate lateral compression of T. rex teeth.
FIGURE 2 in Maximum Bite Force and Prey Size of Tyrannosaurus rex and Their Relationships to the Inference of Feeding Behavior
FIGURE 2 Skull morphology and crushing bites. Typical theropods have dentary teeth that are aligned just medial to the maxillary teeth, (a) This results in forces that are almost directly opposed when the teeth, exemplified here by those of Allosaurus fragilis, engage a food item, (b) In contrast, the dentary and maxillary teeth of Tyrannosaurus rex do not generate directly opposed forces in biting. Rather, the medially aligned dentaries tend to concentrate force near midline. In bilateral biting, the resulting stress on the prey is well-suited to crushing either bone or soft tissues.
Predator population size structure alters consumption of prey from epigeic and grazing food webs
<p>Numerous studies have found that predators can suppress prey densities and thereby impact important ecosystem processes such as plant productivity and decomposition. However, prey suppression by spiders can be highly variable. Unlike predators that feed on prey within a single energy channel, spiders often consume prey from asynchronous energy channels, such as grazing (live plant) and epigeic (soil surface) channels. Spiders undergo few life cycle changes and thus appear to be ideally suited to link energy channels, but ontogenetic diet shifts in spiders have received little attention. For example, spider use of different food channels may be highly specialized in different life stages and thus a species may be a multichannel omnivore only when we consider all life stages. Using stable isotopes, we investigated whether wolf spider (Pardosa littoralis, henceforth Pardosa) prey consumption is driven by changes in spider size. Small spiders obtained > 80% of their prey from the epigeic channel, whereas larger spiders used grazing and epigeic prey almost equally. Changes in prey consumption were not driven by changes in prey density, but by changes in prey use by different spider size classes. Thus, because the population size structure of Pardosa changes dramatically over the growing season, changes in spider size may have important implications for the strength of trophic cascades. Our research demonstrates that life history can be an important component of predator diet, which may in turn affect community- and ecosystem-level processes.</p>
Data and code for: River noise alters orb-weaving spider abundance, web size, and prey capture
<p>Novel anthropogenic noise has received considerable attention in behavioral ecology, but natural acoustic environments have largely been ignored as ecological niche axes. In riparian sites, within an arid sagebrush steppe ecosystem, we use a natural range of acoustic environments along with experimentally broadcasted whitewater river noise to test our hypothesis that river noise is an important niche axis. We show that orb-weaving spiders (Araneidae and Tetragnathidae) are more abundant in high sound level environments, but do not seem to be affected by the background noise spectrum. We explore multiple hypotheses for these patterns, such as loss of vertebrate predators and increased prey capture, and then assess how web-building behavior and body condition may be altered. Here, we demonstrate that river noise has the potential to alter spider abundance and behavior.</p>
Data from: Craniodental indicators of prey size preference in the Felidae
In the present study, we used linear morphometrics of the crania, mandible and dentition to explore the association between craniodental shape and prey size among 35 species of living felids. To accomplish this, felids were divided into three prey-size groups: (1) large prey specialists; (2) small prey specialists; and (3) mixed prey feeders. From these linear measurements, large prey specialist felids can be distinguished from small and mixed prey feeders by their relatively robust canines and incisors and relatively wide muzzles. These cranial characters are advantageous when dispatching large prey, due to the stranglehold that cats employ during this activity. Robust canines resist the bending and torsional forces applied by struggling prey and a wider muzzle helps to stabilize grip and distribute bite forces more evenly during the killing bite. Small prey specialists had smaller canines, narrower muzzles and slightly longer jaws for a speed advantage when catching small, quick prey. Mixed prey feeders were intermediate between large and small prey specialists, indicating they are adapted to killing both sizes of prey. Given the success of this ecomorphological analysis of living felids that specialize on different prey sizes, we look forward to applying this same approach to extinct species.
Data from: Prey size and dietary niche of Rafinesque's big-eared bat (Corynorhinus rafinesquii)
Bats in the genus Corynorhinus possess a suite of morphological characters that permit them to effectively use both gleaning and aerial-hawking foraging strategies to capture Lepidoptera. Consequently, they occupy a specialized feeding niche within North American bat assemblages and are of particular interest for dietary studies. We collected fecal pellets from a colony of C. rafinesquii (Rafinesque's Big-Eared Bat) at Mammoth Cave National Park during August–October 2011 and amplified cytochrome-c oxidase subunit 1 fragments of prey from these pellets. We used the Barcode of Life Database to identify prey, and evaluated the size of prey species based on published values. The mean wingspan of prey we recorded from our samples was smaller than average values reported for Rafinesque's Big-Eared Bat using traditional methods (P ≤ 0.01), suggesting that surveys of culled insect parts beneath roosting sites may lead to biased estimates of the size and breadth of prey species eaten by gleaning bats. Mean wingspan of lepidopteran prey consumed by Rafinesque's Big-Eared Bat in our study was larger (P ≤ 0.01) than values reported for the Myotis septentrionalis (Northern Long-Eared Bat ), which is a smaller, sympatric gleaner in eastern North America. Further, comparisons of our diet data with abundance of prey suggest macrolepidopteran taxa are consistently consumed by Rafinesque's Big-Eared Bat to greater degree than microlepidotera. Our findings suggest that North American Corynorhinus consume a wider range of sizes and species of Lepidoptera than previously reported in studies based solely on identification of culled prey-wings beneath feeding roosts.
Data from: Intraspecific predator inhibition, not a prey size refuge, enables oyster population persistence during predator outbreaks
Predators commonly structure natural communities, but predation effects can vary greatly. For example, increasing predator densities may not reduce prey populations as expected if intraspecific predator interactions suppress foraging efficiency or if prey size refuges exist. In northeastern Florida (USA), outbreaks of the predatory crown conch Melongena corona have contributed to declines in oyster populations and the commercial oyster fishery. However, despite expectations of oyster population collapse, reefs have persisted, albeit with reduced adult oyster size and living reef biomass. To investigate the mechanism(s) underlying this unexpected persistence, we used field observations and experiments to examine the effects of predator density and prey size on predation rates. Multi-year surveys indicated that large oysters did not experience a predation size refuge, and further suggested that predation rates declined with increased predator density. Consistent with field surveys, field experiments demonstrated that conchs selectively consumed larger oysters (potentially explaining the absence of large oysters on natural reefs) and that high conch densities suppressed per capita predation rates, likely due to intraspecific antagonistic interactions. A Type III ratio-dependent model best described the experimental conch functional response, explaining >50% of the variation in per capita prey consumption and including a signal of reduced attack rates at high predator densities. Thus, although large aggregations of predators have the potential to deplete prey populations, our study illustrates intraspecific predator interactions that possibly prevent the local extirpation of an important habitat-forming prey species.
Data from: Do intraspecific or interspecific interactions determine responses to predators feeding on a shared size-structured prey community?
1. Coexistence of predators that share the same prey is common. This is still the case in size structured predator communities where predators consume prey species of different sizes (interspecific prey responses) or consume different size classes of the same species of prey (intraspecific prey responses). 2. A mechanism has recently been proposed to explain coexistence between predators that differ in size but share the same prey species, emergent facilitation, which is dependent on strong intraspecific responses from one or more prey species. Under emergent facilitation predators can depend on each other for invasion, persistence or success in a size structured prey community. 3. Experimental evidence for intraspecific size-structured responses in prey populations remain rare and further questions remain about direct interactions between predators that could prevent or limit any positive effects between predators (e.g. intraguild predation). 4. Here we provide a community wide experiment on emergent facilitation including natural predators. We investigate both the direct interaction between two predators that differ in body size (fish vs. invertebrate predator) and the indirect interaction between them via their shared prey community (zooplankton). 5. Our evidence supports the most likely expectation of interactions between differently sized predators, that intraguild predation rates are high and interspecific interactions in the shared prey community dominate the response to predation (i.e. predator-mediated competition). The question of whether emergent facilitation occurs frequently in nature requires more empirical and theoretical attention, specifically to address the likelihood that its pre-conditions may co-occur with high rates of intraguild predation.
Data from: Predation risk affects growth and reproduction of an invasive snail and its lethal effect depends on prey size
The behavior of invasive species under predation risk has been studied extensively, but their growth and reproductive responses have rarely been investigated. We conducted experiments with juveniles and adults of the invasive freshwater snail Pomacea canaliculata, and we observed changes in growth and reproduction in response to predation risk from a caged predator (Trachemys scripta elegans). P. canaliculata produced eggs earlier in the presence of predators and injured conspecifics compared with the control group (no risk), although the total number of egg masses laid by per female was exceeded by that of the controls after 15 days. Egg hatching success noticeably decreased under predation risk, and the incubation period was significantly prolonged; however, the oviposition height of the snails was not affected. A lethal effect of predation risk was detected in juvenile snails but not in adults. The growth of juvenile P. canaliculata was inhibited under predation risk, probably due to a reduction in food intake. Adult females exhibited a greater reduction in growth under predation risk than males, which likely resulted in part from the high reproductive investment of females in egg laying. These results indicate that P. canaliculata snails under predation risk face a trade-off between predator avoidance and growth and reproduction, where the lethal effect of predation risk is linked to the size of the prey.
Figure 3 in Prey-predator interactions and body size relationships between annual cicadas and spiders in Japan
Figure 3. Comparison of prey–predator size ratio among predator spider species. Data indicate at least three observations per prey–predator interaction (see Materials and methods). Different prey species are indicated by different colours on plots. Dashed line indicated the prey–predator body size ratio of 1.0. Data set = subset that excluded rare prey-predator interactions (n <3).
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.