Abstract Mechanisticapproachestoplanktonfood-websoftenrelyonsize-basedmodels.Thesemodelsdescribe predator–preyrelationshipsbasedonpredator body or cell size. However, size-based representations of trophic relationships fail to encompass the diverse feeding behavior dinoflagellates, which play an essential role in food-web due their abundance and ubiquity. Here, we introduce specialization facto...

The distribution and behavior of foraging animals usually imply a balance between resource availability and predation risk. In some predators such as scorpions, cannibalism constitutes an important mortality factor determining their ecology and behavior. Climbing on vegetation by scorpions has been related both to prey availability and to predation (cannibalism) risk. We tested different hypoth...

Gene flow that hampers local adaptation can constrain species distributions and slow invasions. Predation as an ecological factor mainly limits prey species ranges, but a richer array of possibilities arises once one accounts for how predation alters the interplay of gene flow and selection. We extend previous single-species theory on the interplay of demography, gene flow, and selection by inv...

Fonteneau et al. – 2009 – Relationships between bird morphology and prey selection in two sympatric Great Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo subspecies during winter. Abstract Variation in bird morphology (notably sex size dimorphism) has been suggested to contribute to differences in food use between individuals. We explore the hypothesis of food partitioning (diet overlap and prey size selection) ...

Deadly toxins and resistance to them are an evolutionary enigma. Selection for increased resistance does not occur if predators do not survive encounters with toxic prey. Similarly, deadly toxins are of no advantage to individual prey if it dies delivering the toxins. For individual selection to drive the coevolutionary arms race between resistant predators and lethal prey, the survivorship of ...

...................................................................................................................3 Research Project Background.............................................................................4 -Predator-Prey Interaction -Natural Selection and Coevolution -The Test Case: Canadian Lynx and Snowshoe Hare Laying a Foundation in Differential Equations......................

In many ecosystems, natural selection can occur quickly enough to influence the population dynamics and thus future selection. This suggests the importance of extending classical population dynamics models to include such eco-evolutionary processes. Here, we describe a predator-prey model in which the prey population growth depends on a prey density-dependent fitness landscape. We show that thi...