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256 results for “Interactions: predation”
Asymmetrical effects of temperature on stage-structured predator-prey interactions
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Beneath the Antarctic sea-ice: Fine-scale analysis of Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) behaviour and predator-prey interactions, using micro-sonar data in Terre Adélie
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Data from: Abundant top predators increase species interaction network complexity in Northeastern Chinese forests
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Data for Predation and resource availability interact to drive life-history evolution in an adaptive radiation of livebearing fish
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Data from: Constraints and demands interact to affect prey dietary reaction to predation
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Habitat features and performance interact to determine the outcomes of terrestrial predator-prey pursuits
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Data from: Human-driven breakdown of predator-prey interactions in the northern Adriatic Sea
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Data from: Influence of intra- and interspecific variation in predator-prey body size ratios on trophic interaction strengths
<p>1. Predation is a pervasive force that structures food webs and directly influences ecosystem functioning. The relative body sizes of predators and prey may be an important determinant of interaction strengths. However, studies quantifying the combined influence of intra- and interspecific variation in predator-prey body size ratios are lacking.</p> <p>2. We use a comparative functional response approach to examine interaction strengths between three size classes of invasive bluegill and largemouth bass towards three scaled size classes of their tilapia prey. We then quantify the influence of intra- and interspecific predator-prey body mass ratios on the scaling of attack rates and handling times.</p> <p>3. Type II functional responses were displayed by both predators across all predator and prey size classes. Largemouth bass consumed more than bluegill at small and intermediate predator size classes, whilst large predators of both species were more similar. Small prey were most vulnerable overall, however differential attack rates among prey were emergent across predator sizes. For both bluegill and largemouth bass, small predators exhibited higher attack rates towards small and intermediate prey sizes, whilst larger predators exhibited greater attack rates towards large prey. Conversely, handling times increased with prey size, with small bluegill exhibiting particularly low feeding rates towards medium-large prey types. Attack rates for both predators peaked unimodally at intermediate predator-prey body mass ratios, whilst handling times generally shortened across increasing body mass ratios.</p> <p>4. We thus demonstrate effects of body size ratios on predator-prey interaction strengths between key fish species, with attack rates and handling times dependent on the relative sizes of predator-prey participants.</p> <p>5. Considerations for intra- and interspecific body size ratio effects are critical for predicting the strengths of interactions within ecosystems and may drive differential ecological impacts among invasive species as size ratios shift.</p>
Data from: Antagonistic species interaction drives selection for sex in a predator-prey system
<p>The evolutionary maintenance of sexual reproduction has long challenged biologists as the majority of species reproduce sexually despite inherent costs. Providing a general explanation for the evolutionary success of sex has thus proven difficult and resulted in numerous hypotheses. A leading hypothesis suggests that antagonistic species interaction can generate conditions selecting for increased sex due to the production of rare or novel genotypes that are beneficial for rapid adaptation to recurrent environmental change brought on by antagonism. To test this ecology-based hypothesis, we conducted experimental evolution in a predator (rotifer) - prey (algal) system by using continuous cultures to track predator-prey dynamics and in-situ rates of sex in the prey over time and within replicated experimental populations. Overall, we found that predator-mediated fluctuating selection for competitive versus defended prey resulted in higher rates of genetic mixing in the prey. More specifically, our results showed that fluctuating population sizes of predator and prey, coupled with a trade-off in the prey, drove the sort of recurrent environmental change that could provide a benefit to sex in the prey, despite inherent costs. We end with a discussion of potential population genetic mechanisms underlying increased selection for sex in this system, based on our application of a general theoretical framework for measuring the effects of sex over time, and interpreting how these effects can lead to inferences about the conditions selecting for or against sexual reproduction in a system with antagonistic species interaction.</p>
Data from: Between predators and parasitoids: complex interactions among shelter traits, predation, and parasitism in a shelter-building caterpillar community
<ol> <li>Shelter building is widespread in the animal world and such shelters often influence the success of their builders. Shelters built by caterpillars influence the likelihood of attacks by natural enemies, but how particular shelter traits influence caterpillar survival is not known. Furthermore, the differential effects of certain shelter traits on some natural enemies, such as predators, may lead to "enemy-free space" for other natural enemies (parasitoids). The parasitoid enemy-free space hypothesis has not been directly tested for shelter-building caterpillars.</li> <li>To understand how shelter traits influence caterpillar survival, shelter traits, predation, and parasitism were measured simultaneously for 24 caterpillar morphospecies (1465 caterpillars) in a tropical dry forest and analyzed in a phylogenetic context.</li> <li>Shelter type, shelter openness, and whether shelters accumulated frass had different amounts of phylogenetic signal, with frass accumulation displaying the most and shelter openness the least.</li> <li>All three traits affected the frequency with which caterpillar species experienced predation. Predation was elevated in two shelter types (leaf folds and leaf rolls) compared to cut-and-fold shelters. Combinations of shelter openness and frass accumulation also affected predation, with closed frass-free shelters having the lowest predation and closed frass-filled shelters having the highest.</li> <li>Parasitism was not affected by shelter traits but was strongly correlated with evolutionary history and negatively correlated with predation.</li> <li>These results confirm a trade-off between predation and parasitism and demonstrate that predation can be more frequent than parasitism. Different shelter types result in different amounts of predation. These defensive shelter traits and their effectiveness also vary phylogenetically. Together, our results suggest that predation and parasitism determine the success of shelter-building caterpillars, and that success is a function of the specific shelter they construct. More generally, our results demonstrate the importance of considering the effects of defensive traits on both predators and parasitoids when investigating interactions between herbivores and natural enemies.</li> </ol>
Data from: Behavioral hypervolumes of predator groups and predator-predator interactions shape prey survival rates and selection on prey behavior
Predator-prey interactions often vary on the basis of the traits of the individual predators and prey involved. Here we examine whether the multidimensional behavioral diversity of predator groups shapes prey mortality rates and selection on prey behavior. We ran individual sea stars (Pisaster ochraceus) through three behavioral assays to characterize individuals' behavioral phenotype along three axes. We then created groups that varied in the volume of behavioral space that they occupied. We further manipulated the ability of predators to interact with one another physically via the addition of barriers. Prey snails (Chlorostome funebralis) were also run through an assay to evaluate their predator avoidance behavior before their use in mesocosm experiments. We then subjected pools of prey to predator groups and recorded the number of prey consumed and their behavioral phenotypes. We found that predator-predator interactions changed survival selection on prey traits: when predators were prevented from interacting, more fearful snails had higher survival rates, whereas prey fearfulness had no effect on survival when predators were free to interact. We also found that groups of predators that occupied a larger volume in behavioral trait space consumed 35% more prey snails than homogeneous predator groups. Finally, we found that behavioral hypervolumes were better predictors of prey survival rates than single behavioral traits or other multivariate statistics (i.e., principal component analysis). Taken together, predator-predator interactions and multidimensional behavioral diversity determine prey survival rates and selection on prey traits in this system.
Figure 2 in Alien vs. Predator: interactions between the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) and the Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni)
Figure 2. The colossal squid range and sampling areas.
Figure 5. Large tentacle and two arms recovered from a in Alien vs. Predator: interactions between the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) and the Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni)
Figure 5. Large tentacle and two arms recovered from a toothfish stomach. Photo by A. Remeslo.
Plant-animal interactions between carnivorous plants, sheet-web spiders, and ground-running spiders as guild predators in a wet meadow community
<p>Plant-animal interactions are diverse and wide-spread shaping ecology, evolution and biodiversity of most ecological communities. Carnivorous plants are unusual in that they can be simultaneously engaged with animals in multiple mutualistic and antagonistic interactions including reversed plant-animal interactions where they are the predator. Competition with animals is a potential antagonistic plant-animal interaction unique to carnivorous plants when they and animal predators consume the same prey.</p> <p>The goal of this field study was to test the hypothesis that under natural conditions, sundews and spiders are predators consuming the same prey thus creating an environment where interkingdom competition can occur.</p> <p>Over 12 months, we collected data on 15 dates in the only protected Highland Rim Wet Meadow Ecosystem in Kentucky where sundews, sheet-web spiders and ground-running spiders co-exist. One each sampling day, we attempted to locate fifteen sites with: 1) both sheet-web spiders and sundews; 2) sundews only; and where neither occurred. Sticky traps were set at each of these sites to determine prey (springtails) activity-density. Ground-running spiders were collected on sampling days. DNA extraction was performed on all spiders to determine which individuals had eaten springtails and comparing this to the density of sundews where the spiders were captured. </p> <p>Sundews and spiders consumed springtails. Springtail activity-densities were lower the higher the density of sundews. Both sheet-web and ground-running spiders were found less often where sundew densities were high. Sheet-web size was smaller where sundews densities were high. </p> <p>The results of this study suggest that asymmetrical exploitative competition occurs between sundews and spiders. Sundews appear to have a greater negative impact on spiders, where spiders probably have little impact on sundews. In this example of interkingdom competition where the asymmetry should be most extreme, amensalism where one competitor experiences no cost of interaction may be occurring. </p>
Data from: Diversity in thermal affinity among key piscivores buffers impacts of ocean warming on predator-prey interactions
Asymmetries in responses to climate change have the potential to alter important predator-prey interactions, in part by altering the location and size of spatial refugia for prey. We evaluated the effect of ocean warming on interactions between four important piscivores and four of their prey in the U.S. Northeast Shelf by examining species overlap under historical conditions (1968-2014) and with a doubling in CO2. Because both predator and prey shift their distributions in response to changing ocean conditions, the net impact of warming or cooling on predator-prey interactions was not determined a priori from the range extent of either predator or prey alone. For Atlantic cod, an historically dominant piscivore in the region, we found that both historical and future warming led to a decline in the proportion of prey species' range it occupied and caused a potential reduction in its ability to exert top-down control on these prey. In contrast, the potential for overlap of spiny dogfish with prey species was enhanced by warming, expanding their importance as predators in this system. In sum, the decline in the ecological role for cod that began with overfishing in this ecosystem will likely be exacerbated by warming, but this loss may be counteracted by the rise in dominance of other piscivores with contrasting thermal preferences. Functional diversity in thermal affinity within the piscivore guild may therefore buffer against the impact of warming on marine ecosystems, suggesting a novel mechanism by which diversity confers resilience.
Data from: Thermal sensitivity and the role of behavior in driving an intertidal predator-prey interaction
Environmental stress models (ESM) provide a useful framework to study the direct and indirect ecological drivers of community diversity and resilience. ESMs make predictions about the relative importance of structuring processes (e.g., predation) based on the relative stress suffered by consumers and prey. Their practical application, i.e., determining the conditions under which consumers and prey performance is more negatively affected, has been limited because the roles of behavior and physiology are not usually considered. We examined the role of thermal sensitivity and behavior on the thermal performance of the rocky intertidal predator Pisaster ochraceus and its main prey Mytilus californianus. We propose a novel framework that merges thermal performance curves (TPC) with observations of microhabitat use to provide a realistic perspective of the relative physiological conditions of predator and prey. First, by deriving aquatic and aerial TPCs for both species and from two sites, we found differences in parameter values that in some cases correspond to the individuals' origins. Second, we calculated realized thermal performance in the field by combining TPCs with body temperatures recorded with biomimetic sensors. Notably, thermal performance of Pisaster was higher than that for Mytilus (i.e., prey-stress model), contrary to previous expectations based on caging experiments. Third, these estimates of thermal performance corresponded loosely with a measured indicator of overall physiological condition (body mass index, BMI) and a marker for extreme thermal stress (heat-shock proteins 70 kDa), suggesting that environmental drivers other than temperature, such as food supply, must be considered. We found no evidence that Pisaster movement significantly influences thermal performance under typical conditions, suggesting instead that its preference for sheltered microhabitats provides a mechanism for avoiding exposure to extreme environmental conditions. Through the application of TPCs and ESMs, this study provides a unique perspective on the importance of physiology and behavior in driving the sensitivity of species interactions to environmental change. Crucially, this framework allowed clarifying that this system behaves as a prey- instead of consumer-stress model, which may also apply to many other ectotherm species interactions.
Thermal plasticity and evolution shape predator-prey interactions differently in clear and turbid water
<p>Warming and eutrophication negatively affect freshwater ecosystems by modifying trophic interactions and increasing water turbidity. We need to consider their joint effects on predator-prey interactions, and how these depend on the thermal evolution of both predator and prey.</p> <p>We quantified how 4°C warming and algae-induced turbidity (that integrates turbidity per se and increased food for zooplankton prey) affect functional response parameters and prey population parameters in a common-garden experiment. We did so for all combinations of high- and low-latitude predator (damselfly larvae) and prey (water fleas) populations to assess the potential impact of thermal evolution of predators and/or prey at a high latitude under warming using a space-for-time substitution. We then modelled effects on the system stability (i.e. tendency to oscillate) under different warming, turbidity and evolutionary scenarios.</p> <p>Warming and turbidity had little effect on the functional response parameters of high-latitude predators. In contrast, warming and turbidity reduced the handling times of low-latitude predators. Moreover, warming increased the search rates of low-latitude predators in clear water but instead decreased these in turbid water.</p> <p>Warming increased stability (i.e. prevented oscillations) in turbid water (except for the "high-latitude predator & high-latitude prey" system), mainly by decreasing the prey's carrying capacity and partly also by decreasing search rates, while it did not affect stability in clear water. Algae-induced turbidity generally decreased stability, mainly by increasing the prey's carrying capacity and partly also by increasing search rates. This resembles findings that nutrient enrichment can reduce the stability of trophic systems. The expected stability of the high-latitude trophic system under warming was dependent on the turbidity level: our results suggest that thermal plasticity tends to destabilize the high-latitude trophic system under warming in clear water but not in turbid water, and that thermal evolution of the predator will stabilize the high-latitude system under warming in turbid water but less so in clear water.</p> <p>The extent to which thermal plasticity and evolution shape trophic system stability under warming may strongly differ between clear and turbid water bodies, with their contributions having a more stabilizing role in turbid water.</p>
Data from: Interactive effects of wildfires, season, and predator activity shape mule deer movements
<p>Wildfires are increasing in size, frequency, and severity due to climate change and fire suppression, but the direct and indirect effects on wildlife remain largely unresolved. Fire removes forest canopy, which can improve forage for ungulates but also reduce snow interception, leading to a deeper snowpack and potentially increased vulnerability to predation in winter. If ungulates exhibit predator-mediated foraging, burns should generally be selected for in summer to access high-quality forage and avoided in winter to reduce predation risk in deep snow. Fires also typically increase the amount of deadfall and initiate growth of dense understory vegetation, creating obstacles that may confer a hunting advantage to stalking predators and a disadvantage to coursing predators. To minimize risk, ungulates may therefore avoid burns when and where stalking predators are most active, and use burns when and where coursing predators are most active. We used telemetry data from GPS-collared mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), cougars (Puma concolor), and wolves (Canis lupus) to develop step selection functions to examine how mule deer navigated species-specific predation risk across a landscape in northern Washington, USA that has experienced substantial wildfire activity during the past several decades. We considered a diverse array of wildfire impacts, accounting for both the severity of the fire and time since the burn (1 to 35 years) in our analyses. We observed support for the predator mediating foraging hypothesis: mule deer generally selected for burned areas in summer and avoided burns in winter. In addition, deer increased use of burned areas when and where wolf activity was high and avoided burns when and where cougar use was high in winter, suggesting the hunting mode of resident predators mediated the seasonal response of deer to burns. Deer were not more likely to die by predation in burned than in unburned areas, indicating that they adequately manage fire-induced changes to predation risk. As fire activity increases with climate change, our findings indicate the impact on ungulates will depend on tradeoffs between enhanced summer forage and functionally reduced winter range, mediated by characteristics of the predator community.</p>
Data from: Empirically testing the influence of light regime on diel activity patterns in a marine predator reveals complex interacting factors shaping behaviour
<p>Diel cycles in marine predator diving behaviour centre around the light-mediated diel vertical migration (DVM) of prey, and are considered critical for optimizing foraging and limiting competition across global seascapes. Yet our understanding of predator diel behaviour is based primarily on examining relative depth usage between constant day/night cycles with no formal investigation of how varying light regimes interact with abiotic factors to shape diel activity. The extreme seasonal light regimes (midnight sun, polar night, day/night cycle) in the Arctic provide a unique natural experimental setting to empirically investigate the occurrence and intensity of diel behaviour in marine predators relative to changing light levels while concomitantly assessing interacting abiotic factors. Depth time series data from satellite-linked tags deployed on six belugas for up to 12 months were used to quantify diel behaviour by calculating dissimilarity in time-at-depth between periods of low and high solar altitude on each day. Generalized additive mixed effects models were used to examine the influence of hours of daylight across extreme light cycles, coupled with bathymetry and sea ice concentration; focal diel patterns were further examined relative to the thermal structure of the water column. As predicted, belugas exhibited cathemerality during the midnight sun, and initiated diel behaviour with the onset of the fall day/night cycle, with a marked increase in its intensity with the progression to equal day/night length. Occurrence of diel patterns, however, was complex; ceasing in regions with seafloor depths < 700 m, and occurring with greatest intensity when the water column was thermally homogeneous within the upper 150 m. Through empirical investigation, this study demonstrates that the onset of day/night light cycles and presumably associated prey DVM can modulate predator diel dive behaviour under certain circumstances, but highlights how the complex interaction of abiotic factors with light regime shape dynamic spatiotemporal patterns. These findings, building on a body of recent work, emphasize that the traditional view of the ubiquitous occurrence of diel behaviour tied to DVM at the base of the food web oversimplifies vertical predator-prey interactions, identifying the need for more structured investigation. </p>
Inferring predator-prey interactions from camera traps: A Bayesian co-abundance modelling approach
<p><span>Predator-prey dynamics are a fundamental part of ecology, but directly studying interactions has proven difficult. The proliferation of camera trapping has enabled the collection of large datasets on wildlife, but researchers face hurdles inferring interactions from observational data. </span><span>Recent advances in </span><span>hierarchical c</span><span>o-abundance models infer species interactions while </span><span>accounting for two species' detection probabilities, shared responses to environmental covariates, and propagate uncertainty throughout the</span> <span>entire modelling process. However, current approaches remain </span><span>unsuitable for interacting species </span><span>whose natural densities differ by an order of magnitude and have contrasting detection probabilities, such as predator-prey interactions, which introduce zero-inflation and overdispersion in count histories. </span><span>Here we developed </span><span>a Bayesian hierarchical N-mixture co-abundance model that is </span><span>suitable for </span><span>inferring </span><span>predator-prey </span><span>interactions. We accounted for excessive zeros in count histories using an informed zero-inflated Poisson distribution in the abundance formula and accounted for overdispersion in count histories by including a random effect per sampling unit and sampling occasion in the detection probability formula. We demonstrate that models with these modifications outperform alternative approaches, improve model goodness-of-fit, and overcome parameter convergence failures. We highlight its utility using 20 camera trapping datasets </span><span>from 10 tropical forest landscapes in Southeast Asia and estimate four predator-prey relationships between tigers, clouded leopards, and muntjac and sambar deer. Tigers had a negative effect on muntjac abundance, providing support for top-down regulation, while clouded leopards had a positive effect on muntjac and sambar deer, likely driven by shared responses to unmodelled covariates like hunting. </span><span>This Bayesian co-abundance modelling approach to quantify predator-prey relationships </span><span>is widely applicable across species, ecosystems, and sampling approaches, and may be useful in forecasting cascading impacts following widespread predator declines. Taken together, this approach facilitates a nuanced and mechanistic understanding of food-web ecology.</span></p>
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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.
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