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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).
In the context of ecology, predation is considered to play a crucial and necessary role in ecosystems. [47] This has led some writers, such as Michael Pollan, to reject predation as being a moral problem at all, stating "predation is not a matter of morality or politics; it, also, is a matter of symbiosis". [48]
In ecology, a priority effect refers to the impact that a particular species can have on community development as a result of its prior arrival at a site. [1] [2] [3] There are two basic types of priority effects: inhibitory and facilitative. An inhibitory priority effect occurs when a species that arrives first at a site negatively affects a ...
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]
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:
This means that new mutants or migrants that have color patterns other than the common type are eliminated from the population by differential predation. Positive frequency-dependent selection provides the basis for Müllerian mimicry , as described by Fritz Müller, [ 17 ] because all species involved are aposematic and share the benefit of a ...
Intraguild predation is common in nature and widespread across communities and ecosystems. [2] Intraguild predators must share at least one prey species and usually occupy the same trophic guild, and the degree of IGP depends on factors such as the size, growth, and population density of the predators, as well as the population density and behavior of their shared prey. [1]
Even if a predator may wish to eat its prey, locomotive animals may be extremely difficult to catch. Animals living in groups have increased vigilance, and even solitary animals are capable of rapid escape when needed. Even if it does make a capture, its prey may attract competing predators, giving it a chance to escape in the struggle.