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In coastal plant communities, such as kelp, seagrass meadows, mangrove forests and salt marshes, several studies have documented the far-reaching effects of changing predator populations. Across coastal ecosystems, the loss of marine predators appears to negatively affect coastal plant communities and the ecosystem services they provide. [97]
Phenotypic plasticity is important because it allows an individual to adapt to a changing environment and can ultimately alter their evolutionary path. It not only plays an indirect role in defense as individuals prepare themselves physically to take on the task of avoiding predation through camouflage or developing collective mechanical traits ...
Adaptationist hypotheses regarding why an organism should engage in such risky behavior have been suggested by Eberhard Curio, [8] including advertising their physical fitness and hence uncatchability (much like stotting behavior in gazelles), distracting predators from finding their offspring, warning their offspring, luring the predator away ...
The smallest recorded beetle and the smallest free-living insect (as of 2015), is the featherwing beetle Scydosella musawasensis which may measure as little as 325 μm in length. [ 25 ] Titan beetle , Titanus giganteus , a tropical longhorn , is one of the largest and heaviest insects in the world.
Persistence predators can hunt prey many times their size. No extant members of Archelosauria are known to be long-distance hunters, though various bird species may employ speedy pursuit predation. Living crocodilians and carnivorous turtles are specialized ambush predators and rarely if ever chase prey over great distances.
This one-predator/two-prey model has been explored by ecologists as early as 1925, but the term "apparent competition" was first coined by University of Florida ecologist Robert D. Holt in 1977. [ 13 ] [ 14 ] Holt found that field ecologists at the time were erroneously attributing negative interactions among prey species to niche partitioning ...
When environmental conditions change, generalists are able to adapt, but specialists tend to fall victim to extinction much more easily. [6] For example, if a species of fish were to go extinct, any specialist parasites would also face extinction.
Deimatic display: Callistoctopus macropus generates a bright brownish red colour with white oval spots when disturbed. Deimatic behaviour is found in cephalopods including the common cuttlefish Sepia officinalis, squid such as the Caribbean reef squid (Sepioteuthis sepioidea) and bigfin reef squid (Sepioteuthis lessoniana), octopuses [15] including the common octopus Octopus vulgaris and the ...