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Huffaker was expanding upon Gause's experiments by further introducing heterogeneity. Gause's experiments had found that predator and prey populations would become extinct regardless of initial population size. However, Gause also concluded that a predator–prey community could be self-sustaining if there were refuges for the prey population.
The Lotka–Volterra equations, also known as the Lotka–Volterra predator–prey model, are a pair of first-order nonlinear differential equations, frequently used to describe the dynamics of biological systems in which two species interact, one as a predator and the other as prey.
Using these variables, the optimal diet model can predict how predators choose between two prey types: big prey 1 with energy value E 1 and handling time h 1, and small prey 2 with energy value E 2 and handling time h 2. In order to maximize its overall rate of energy gain, a predator must consider the profitability of the two prey types.
A structural diagram of the open ocean plankton ecosystem model of Fasham, Ducklow & McKelvie (1990). [1]An ecosystem model is an abstract, usually mathematical, representation of an ecological system (ranging in scale from an individual population, to an ecological community, or even an entire biome), which is studied to better understand the real system.
Predator productivity is correlated with prey productivity. This confirms that the primary productivity in ecosystems affects all productivity following. [20] Detritus is a large portion of organic material in ecosystems. Organic material in temperate forests is mostly made up of dead plants, approximately 62%.
If predators learn while foraging, but do not reject prey before they accept one, the functional response becomes a function of the density of all prey types. This describes predators that feed on multiple prey and dynamically switch from one prey type to another. This behaviour can lead to either a type II or a type III functional response.
Experiments on blue jays suggest they form a search image for certain prey.. Visual predators may form what is termed a search image of certain prey.. Predators need not locate their host directly: Kestrels, for instance, are able to detect the faeces and urine of their prey (which reflect ultraviolet), allowing them to identify areas where there are large numbers of voles, for example.
Anvil stone, where a thrush has broken open shells of polymorphic Cepaea snails; its selection of morphs may be frequency-dependent. [4]The first explicit statement of frequency-dependent selection appears to have been by Edward Bagnall Poulton in 1884, on the way that predators could maintain color polymorphisms in their prey.