Rotifer communities under variable predation-turbulence combinations

Multiple stressors in rotifer communities: Effects of predation, climate change, and brownification

Insect development under predation risk variable temperature, and variable food quality.

We model the development of an individual insect, a grasshopper, through its nymphal period as a function of a trade-off between prey vigilance and nutrient intake in a changing environment. Both temperature and food quality may be variable. We scale up to the population level using natural mortality and a predation risk that is mass, vigilance, and temperature dependent. Simulations reveal the...

Predation in two species of leech under laboratory conditions

Two 60 day experiments on predation behavior of leeches were conducted concurrently. In the first, medicinal leeches, Hirudo orientalis (Utevsky and Trontelj, 2005) were fed to satiation on bovine blood and subsequently transferred into two large opaque plastic containers of equal size but with differing temperatures, 6-7?C and 23-24?C, containing starved Erpobdella octoculata (L.). At the high...

Patch choice under predation hazard.

In this paper we study optimal animal movement in heterogeneous environments consisting of several food patches in which animals trade-off energy gain versus predation risk. We derive a myopic optimization rule describing optimal animal movements by fitness maximization assuming an animal state is described by a single quantity (such as weight, size, or energy reserves). This rule predicts a cr...

Lévy Walks Suboptimal under Predation Risk

A key challenge in movement ecology is to understand how animals move in nature. Previous studies have predicted that animals should perform a special class of random walks, called Lévy walk, to obtain more targets. However, some empirical studies did not support this hypothesis, and the relationship between search strategy and ecological factors is still unclear. We focused on ecological facto...