Predators must ignore unhelpful background "noise" within information-rich environments and focus on useful cues of prey activity to forage efficiently. Learning to disregard unrewarding cues should happen quickly, weakening future interest in the cue. Prey odor, which is rapidly investigated by predators, may be particularly appropriate for testing whether consistently unrewarded cues are igno...

It has long been recognized that prey that invest in toxic or other defenses often advertise these defenses by means of conspicuously coloured signals. One question that remains unanswered is why conspicuousness is such a universal trait of aposematic signals. Conspicuousness may allow more rapid avoidance learning by predators or improved retention of such learning. An alternative or complemen...

Although the canonical concept of intraguild predation evokes images of predators and prey, several subdisciplines within ecology have developed theory not specifically framed in terms of predation and competition and often using system-specific terminology, yet functionally quite similar. Here, we formulate models combining exploitation and competition in predator-prey, host-parasitoid, and ho...

Theory predicts that the balance of nutritional needs, food availability, and the quality of particular food items are important factors in the feeding decisions of omnivorous animals. In this study we investigate factors that affect the feeding decisions of an omnivorous thrips (Frankliniella occidentalis) that eats both animal prey and plant foliage. In the presence of prey (mite eggs), adult...

In this paper we propose a mathematical learning model for a stochastic automaton simulating the behaviour of a predator operating in a random environment occupied by two types of prey: palatable mimics and unpalatable models. Specifically, a well known linear reinforcement learning algorithm is used to update the probabilities of the two actions, eat prey or ignore prey, at every random encoun...

We study a deterministic continuous-time predator-prey model with parasites, where the prey population is the intermediate host for the parasites. It is assumed that the parasites can affect the behavior of the predator-prey interaction due to infection. The asymptotic dynamics of the system are investigated. A stochastic version of the model is also presented and numerically simulated. We then...

In aposematism a prey species use bright colours, often combined with a black contrasting pattern, to signal unprofitability as prey to potential predators. Although there are several different hypotheses about the presence of these internally contrasting patterns, there is little experimental evidence of any beneficial effects. In this thesis I have used bird predators and artificial prey sign...

The common cuckoo, Cuculus canorus, is a brood parasite that monopolizes parental care of its host species: soon after hatching, the chicks remove the host offspring. Although cuckoo chicks trick their foster parents into providing enough food, it is unknown whether cuckoo begging behaviour represents an advantage over that of the host chicks in a hypothetical competitive scenario. We studied t...