In his seminal paper about using seabirds as indicators of marine food supplies, Cairns (1987, Biol Oceanogr 5:261–271) predicted that (1) parameters of seabird biology and behavior would vary in curvilinear fashion with changes in food supply, (2) the threshold of prey density over which birds responded would be different for each parameter, and (3) different seabird species would respond diff...

Understanding how prey capture rates are influenced by feeding ecology and environmental conditions is fundamental to assessing anthropogenic impacts on marine higher predators. We compared how prey capture rates varied in relation to prey size, prey patch distribution and prey density for two species of alcid, common guillemot (Uria aalge) and razorbill (Alca torda) during the chick-rearing pe...

Predators and parasites that eavesdrop on the mating signals of their prey often preferentially select individuals within a prey/host species that produce specific cues. Mechanisms driving such signal preferences are poorly understood. In the túngara frog Physalaemus pustulosus, conspecific females, frog-eating bats, and blood-sucking flies all prefer complex to simple mating calls. In this stu...

The interactive effects of predator density and prey distribution on the foraging behavior of an important estuarine predator were studied, at a fine temporal scale, using ultrasonic telemetry. The movement and agonistic activity of individual blue crabs Callinectes sapidus were monitored in large field enclosures, in which the density of crabs and the distribution of patches of bivalve prey Ma...

We study a reaction-diffusion-advection model for the dynamics of populations under biological control. A control agent is assumed to be a predator species that has the ability to perceive the heterogeneity of pest distribution. The advection term represents the predator density movement according to a basic prey taxis assumption: acceleration of predators is proportional to the prey density gr...

Heteropteran predators constitute an important component of predatory guilds in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Most heteropteran species have generalist diets, and intraguild predation has been documented in most heteropteran families. Zoophytophagous species also frequently engage in intraguild interactions. An increase in extraguild prey density is often predicted to reduce intraguild pr...

Numerous ecological models evaluate how predators influence the abundance of their prey. Prey dynamics in these models often reflect a compromise between prey reproductive potential, density-dependent competition, and the direct consumption of prey by predators. But predators and prey play a complex evolutionary game where prey behavior, and its effect on distribution and abundance, depends on ...

Spatially moving predators are often considered for biological control of invasive species. The question arises as to whether introduced predators are able to stop an advancing pest or foreign population. In recent studies of reaction-diffusion models, it has been shown that the prey invasion can only be stopped if the prey dynamics observes an Allee effect. In this paper, we include prey-taxis...

Predator-prey models consider those prey that are free. They assume that once a prey is captured by a predator it leaves the system. A question arises whether in predator-prey population models the variable describing prey population shall consider only those prey which are free, or both free and handled prey together. In the latter case prey leave the system after they have been handled. The c...

We present a Gause type predator–prey model incorporating delay due to response of prey population growth to density and gestation. The functional response of predator is assumed to be of Holling type II. In absence of prey, predator has a density dependent death rate. Sufficient criterion for uniform persistence is derived. Conditions are found out for which system undergoes a Hopf–bifurcation...