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Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the host ) and parasitoidism (which always does, eventually).
For example, exploitative interactions between a predator and prey can result in the extinction of the victim (the prey, in this case), as the predator, by definition, kills the prey, and thus reduces its population. [2] Another effect of these interactions is in the coevolutionary "hot" and "cold spots" put forth by geographic mosaic theory ...
The definition of preference will therefore impact on understanding switching. The most common definition of preference is the relationship between the ratio of prey in the environment and the ratio of prey in a predator's diet. It has been independently proposed a number of times and is described by the equation:
At low prey densities, the search time is long. Since the predator spends most of its time searching, it eats every prey item it finds. As prey density increases, the predator is able to capture the prey faster and faster. At a certain point, the rate of prey capture is so high, that the predator doesn't have to eat every prey item it encounters.
Frequency-dependent selection is usually the result of interactions between species (predation, parasitism, or competition), or between genotypes within species (usually competitive or symbiotic), and has been especially frequently discussed with relation to anti-predator adaptations.
A bear with a salmon. Interspecific interactions such as predation are a key aspect of community ecology.. In ecology, a community is a group or association of populations of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area at the same time, also known as a biocoenosis, biotic community, biological community, ecological community, or life assemblage.
Hence the equation expresses that the rate of change of the predator's population depends upon the rate at which it consumes prey, minus its intrinsic death rate. The Lotka–Volterra predator-prey model makes a number of assumptions about the environment and biology of the predator and prey populations: [5]
Hyperpredation has been recorded in an ecosystem involving a bird (native prey), a cat (alien predator), and a rabbit (alien prey). Hyperpredation, also known as hypopredation, is when a generalist predator increases its predation pressure as a result of the introduction of a substitute prey. [1]