Current models of social organization assume that predation is one of the major forces that promotes group living in diurnal primates. As large body size renders some protection against predators, gregariousness of great apes and other large primate species is usually related to other parameters. The low frequency of observed cases of nonhuman predation on great apes seems to support this assum...

The invasive container-dwelling mosquito Aedes albopictus (Skuse) shows modest behavioral responses to water-borne cues from predatory Corethrella appendiculata Grabham in North America. We investigate whether Ae. albopictus adjust their antipredatory responses to be proportional to size-dependent risk of predation. Fourth-instar Ae. albopictus attain a size refuge from C. appendiculata predati...

Seasonal declines in avian clutch size are well documented, but seasonal variation in other reproductive parameters has received less attention. For example, the probability of complete brood mortality typically explains much of the variation in reproductive success and often varies seasonally, but we know little about the underlying cause of that variation. This oversight is surprising given t...

An increasing proportion of the world's poor is rearing livestock today, and the global livestock population is growing. Livestock predation by large carnivores and their retaliatory killing is becoming an economic and conservation concern. A common recommendation for carnivore conservation and for reducing predation on livestock is to increase wild prey populations based on the assumption that...

Variation in the risk of predation to offspring can influence the expression of reproductive strategies both within and among species. Appropriate expression of reproductive strategies in environments that differ in predation risk can have clear advantages for fitness. Although adult-predation risk appears to influence glucocorticosteroid levels, leading to changes in behavioral and life-histor...

Organisms often exhibit behavioral plasticity in response to changes in factors, such as predation risk, mate density, and age. Particularly, female mate choosiness (the strength of female's attraction to male traits as they deviate from preferred trait values) has repeatedly been shown to be plastic. This is due to the costs associated with searching for preferred males fluctuating with change...

Predators exert strong top-down pressure on herbivorous insects, but research on how predators affect herbivore fitness often focuses on the more active juvenile and adult life stages while ignoring the pupal or cocoon life stage. Few studies have investigated predation of lepidopteran pupae or cocoons and even fewer have investigated species that are not forest pests. Here we present a study o...

The spatial distributions of predators and prey can be shaped by both intraand interspecific games. Most predator–prey studies, however, have ignored the interspecific game by focusing on how either predators or prey distribute themselves while holding the distribution of the other species fixed. We use genetic algorithms to examine how the distributional outcome of the game between predators a...

States with weak institutions can lose from trade with strong states when trade is subject to predation. The happy liberal idea of trade fostering better institutions and peace can be turned on its head. The Ricardian model of trade subject to predation offered here implies imperialism without capital, contra Marxists. Weak and poor South trades with strong and rich North. Poor South labor is a...

In this paper, we are concerned with the role of the age structure of a prey in the dynamic of a predator prey model. Specifically, we study the effect of predation on a non-reproductive class of the prey, when the reproductive class of the prey presents a group defense mechanism. Three different scenarios are analyzed: (1) Constant predation rate on the nonreproductive class, no defense mechan...