Although biologists routinely label animals as predators and prey, the ecological role of individuals is often far from clear. There are many examples of role reversals in predators and prey, where adult prey attack vulnerable young predators. This implies that juvenile prey that escape from predation and become adult can kill juvenile predators. We show that such an exposure of juvenile prey t...

As predator-prey interactions are inherently size-dependent, predator and prey body sizes are key to understanding their feeding relationships. To describe predator-prey size relationships (PPSRs) when predators can consume prey larger than themselves, we conducted field observations targeting three aquatic hemipteran bugs, and assessed their body masses and those of their prey for each hunting...

1. Foraging underlies the ability of all animals to acquire essential resources and thus provides a critical link to understand population dynamics. A key issue is how variation in foraging behaviour affects foraging efficiency and predator–prey interactions in spatially heterogeneous environments. However, there is very little quantitative information available on this topic. 2. We evaluated t...

As predator–prey interactions are inherently size-dependent, predator and prey body sizes are key to understanding their feeding relationships. To describe predator–prey size relationships (PPSRs) when predators can consume prey larger than themselves, we conducted field observations targeting three aquatic hemipteran bugs, and assessed their body masses and those of their prey for each hunting...

Inducible defences are widely used for studying phenotypic plasticity, yet frequently we know little about the cues that induce these defences. For aquatic prey, defences are induced by chemical cues from predators (kairomones) and injured prey (alarm cues). Rarely has anyone determined the separate and combined effects of these cues, particularly across phylogenetically diverse prey types. We ...

We consider a predator-prey population model with prey gathering together for defense purposes. A transmissible unrecoverable disease affects the prey. We characterize the system behavior, establishing that ultimately either only the susceptible prey survive, or the disease becomes endemic, but the predators are wiped out. Another alternative is that the disease is eradicated, with sound prey a...

Predators can affect prey populations and, via trophic cascades, predators can indirectly impact resource populations (2 trophic levels below the predator) through consumption of prey (density-mediated indirect effects; DMIEs) and by inducing predator-avoidance behavior in prey (trait-mediated indirect effects; TMIEs). Prey often employ multiple predator-avoidance behaviors, such as dispersal o...

Ecological theory predicts that generalist predators should damp or suppress long-term periodic fluctuations (cycles) in their prey populations and depress their average densities. However, the magnitude of these impacts is likely to vary depending on the availability of alternative prey species and the nature of ecological mechanisms driving the prey cycles. These multispecies effects can be m...

Developmental studies have shown that environmental stimulation received by a developing sensory system can alter the developmental outcome of both that sensory system and other aspects of the nervous system. We investigated the ecologically relevant question of whether prior exposure to prey early in development within one sensory modality could influence later prey choice within a different s...

Dispersal theory generally predicts kin competition, inbreeding, and temporal variation in habitat quality should select for dispersal, whereas spatial variation in habitat quality should select against dispersal. The effect of predation on the evolution of dispersal is currently not well-known: because predation can be variable in both space and time, it is not clear whether or when predation ...