Vertebrate predation was a vital behavior during human evolution. Some Afro-Eurasian primates, such as baboons (Papio spp.) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), frequently hunt consume vertebrate prey. Capuchin monkeys (Cebus Sapajus) are omnivorous platyrrhines, also vertebrates opportunistically. Bearded capuchin (Sapajus libidinosus) living in semi-arid savannah environments use stone tools to...

The effect of foraging behavior on predation risk was studied by exposing the two small Calanoid copepods Acartia clausi and Acartia tonsa to 0 or 1 ppm (1,500 cells ml-l) of the diatom Thalassiosira weissfogii and to presence of the predator Pureuchaeta norvegica. In filtered water, predation rate was the same on the two species. In algal suspension, predation rate on A. clausi was half that i...

Female song is an ancestral trait in songbirds, yet extant females generally sing less than males. Here, we examine sex differences in the predation cost of singing behaviour. The superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) is a Southern Hemisphere songbird; males and females provision the brood and produce solo song year-round. Both sexes had higher song rate during the fertile period and lower song r...

Trichocorixa verticalis (T. verticalis), native to North America and the Caribbean islands, is an invasive waterboatman species (Corixidae) in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Previous studies in the native range have suggested that predation by T. verticalis can regulate the abundance of Anostracan and Cladoceran zooplankton in saline ecosystems, causing increases in phytoplankton throu...

Predators can exert strong direct and indirect effects on ecological communities by intimidating their prey. The nature of predation risk effects is often context dependent, but in some ecosystems these contingencies are often overlooked. Risk effects are often not uniform across landscapes or among species. Indeed, they can vary widely across gradients of habitat complexity and with different ...

Direct and indirect interactions between two prey species can strongly alter the dynamics of predator-prey systems. Most predators are cannibalistic, and as a consequence, even systems with only one predator and one prey include two prey types: conspecifics and heterospecifics. The effects of the complex direct and indirect interactions that emerge in such cannibalistic systems are still poorly...

The predation of a luminescence-marked strain of Pseudomonas fluorescens by the soil ciliate Colpoda steinii was studied in soil microcosms. Bacterial cells were introduced in either small (neck diameter, <6 (mu)m) or intermediate-sized (neck diameter, 6 to 30 (mu)m) pores in the soil by inoculation at appropriate matric potentials, and ciliates were introduced into large pores (neck diameter, ...

Biosphere Reserves aim at being role models for biodiversity conservation. This study focuses on the unsuccessful conservation of waders (Charadrii) on wet grasslands in the Kristianstad Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve (KVBR) in southern Sweden. Predation on nests and young has been proposed as one reason contributing to the decline of waders. We explored this hypothesis by comparing two landscape...

Urbanization can affect interspecific interactions such as predator-prey relationships. Several hypotheses have been postulated to predict how predation on bird nests changes along urbanization gradients; some predict increased and others decreased predation pressures in urban compared to rural habitats. Using a formal meta-analytical approach, we carried out a systematic literature review to t...

Since the classical works by Hjort linked the survival of early life stages of fish to year-class strength and recruitment, fisheries science has struggled to understand the fate of fish eggs and larvae. Here we discuss how food availability will influence growth and survival of larvae when foraging behaviour is flexible and involves predation risk. We use theory to show that small larval fish ...