The functional response describes the relationship between number of prey available and the number eaten by a predator in a given period. Ī predator's functional response to prey density plays a disproportionate role in determining the dynamic stability of predator–prey interactions and regulation of prey populations. The growing realization that evolution occurs rapidly and over fine spatial scales suggests a critical need to explore evolutionary explanations for community dynamics and patterns. Traits involved in species interactions might often come under particularly strong selection, given their close links to fitness (e.g. Yet, empirical syntheses suggest that key ecological traits often vary substantially within species because they sometimes evolve rapidly and across fine spatial scales. The vast majority of studies that measure or predict predator–prey interactions assume that predator–prey interactions remain constant in time and space. These interactions have been codified in hundreds of predator–prey models of varying complexity, which form the basis of our understanding of community coexistence, trophic ecology, resource harvests and biological control. In many environments, trophic interactions dominate, and thus predator–prey interactions can strongly determine the stability and dynamics of natural communities as well as their responses to natural and unnatural disturbances. Community ecologists might often need to consider how local evolution at fine scales alters key relationships in ways that alter local diversity patterns, food web dynamics, resource gradients and community responses to disturbance.Ĭommunity ecologists seek to understand and predict the abundances of interacting species in time and space. We suggest how these parameter changes could alter community equilibria and other emergent properties of food webs. Applying mechanistic equations, we discovered that the combined changes in attack rates, handling times and shape of the functional response enhanced feeding rate in environments with high densities of gape-limited predators. Common garden experiments revealed that spotted salamander from ponds with varying predation risks differed in their functional responses, suggesting an evolutionary response. Here, we evaluate if functional responses diverge among populations of spotted salamander ( Ambystoma maculatum) larvae that face antagonistic selection on feeding strategies based on their own risk of predation. Yet, estimates of these key parameters generally assume stasis in space and time and ignore the potential for local adaptation to alter feeding responses and the stability of trophic dynamics. Its shape and parameters fundamentally govern the dynamic equilibrium of predator–prey interactions and their joint abundances. A predator's functional response determines predator–prey interactions by describing the relationship between the number of prey available and the number eaten.
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