Behavior of Predators and Prey and Links with Population-Level Processes

Abstract

Abstract An important challenge in ecology is to discern the level of biological detail one needs to know about prey and predator interactions in order to make accurate predictions about population and community structure and function. One candidate detail is the predation risk response of prey to predators. Prey must often trade off foraging with avoiding predators. Such trade-offs change individual performance in ways that ultimately affect prey population demography and predator-prey dynamics. At the same time, the nature of the trade-off may vary, depending on predator species. Different predator species may display disparate hunting modes and locate in different habitats used by a prey species. As a consequence, the nature of the foraging/predator-avoidance trade-off played by individual prey may depend on the portion of the habitat used (habitat domain) by the prey in relation to predator species hunting mode (predator identity) and habitat domain. The contingencies between habitat domain and hunting mode may lead to different population-level phenomena in different predator-prey systems. In this chapter, I synthesize information on the nature of prey and predator habitat use and predator hunting mode to develop a general working hypothesis for understanding the nature of predator-prey interactions. This framework helps to reconcile when prey and predator behavior matters, requiring behavior to be included explicitly in considerations of population and community dynamics and, when prey and predator behavior does not matter, allowing this detail to be abstracted in considerations of dynamics.