Freshwater ecosystems are increasingly impacted by alien invasive species which have the potential to alter various ecological interactions like predator-prey and host-parasite relationships. Here, we simultaneously examined predator-prey interactions and parasitization patterns of the highly invasive round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) in the rivers Rhine and Main in Germany. A total of 350 N....

Transmission plays an integral part in the intimate relationship between a host insect and its pathogen that can be altered by abiotic or biotic factors. The latter include other pathogens, parasitoids, or predators. Ants are important species in food webs that act on various levels in a community structure. Their social behavior allows them to prey on and transport larger prey, or they can dis...

We analyze a model of neuronal mechanisms underlying amphibia's prey-catching behavior, integrating hypotheses generated within different areas of Neuroscience and studying how the efficacy of visual prey-like dummies to release toad's prey-catching actions depends on parallel distributed processes occurring at multiple levels of temporal abstraction. First, in the scale of 100's of msecs, chan...

In multiagent systems, the potential interactions between agents is combinatorial. Explicitly coding in each behavioral strategy is not an option. The agents can start with a default set of behavioral rules and adapt them on-line to fit in with their experiences. We investigate perhaps the simplest testbed for multiagent systems: the pursuit game. Four predator agents try to capture a prey agen...

Some parasites move from one host to another via trophic transmission, the consumption of the parasite (inside its current host) by its future host. Feeding links among free-living species can thus be understood as potential transmission routes for parasites. As these links have different dynamic and structural properties, they may also vary in their effectiveness as trophic transmission routes...

The severity of damage to host plants by omnivorous pests can vary according to the availability of plant and animal prey. Two omnivorous mole crickets, Scapteriscus vicinus Scudder and S. borellii Giglio-Tos, were used to determine if the availability of prey influences damage to hybrid bermudagrass by adult mole crickets. Experiments were conducted in arenas with either grass alone (control)...

Warning signals protect unpalatable prey from predation because predators who learn the association between the warning signal and prey unprofitability decrease attacks on the prey. Most of the research have focused on visual aposematic signals that are constantly presented and visible to the predators. But a variety of chemically defended insects are rather cryptic when resting, and only in re...

Although it is well known that spatial learning can be important in the biology of predators that actively move around in search for food, comparatively little is known about ways in which spatial learning might function in the strategies of sit-and-wait predators. In this study, Cyclosa octotuberculata, an orb-web spider that uses its legs to contract radial threads of its web to increase thre...