what is predation

Some catfish such as the Ictaluridae have spines on the back (dorsal) and belly (pectoral) which lock in the erect position; as the catfish thrashes about when captured, these could pierce the predator's mouth, possibly fatally. [49], An extreme form of pursuit is endurance or persistence hunting, in which the predator tires out the prey by following it over a long distance, sometimes for hours at a time. Crabs, lobsters, shrimps, and wood lice are among the best-known crustaceans, but the group also includes an enormous variety of other forms without popular names. [202] The fox was a symbol of fertility in ancient Greece, but a weather demon in northern Europe, and a creature of the devil in early Christianity; the fox is presented as sly, greedy, and cunning in fables from Aesop onwards. [33] For example, the black-browed albatross regularly makes foraging flights to a range of around 700 kilometres (430 miles), up to a maximum foraging range of 3,000 kilometres (1,860 miles) for breeding birds gathering food for their young. [5], The earliest predators were microbial organisms, which engulfed or grazed on others. [51][52], Pursuit predators may be social, like the lion and wolf that hunt in groups, or solitary. [151][152] For example, one assumption is that predators have a linear functional response to prey: the rate of kills increases in proportion to the rate of encounters. [41][40] Vertebrate ambush predators include frogs, fish such as the angel shark, the northern pike and the eastern frogfish. In the northeastern Pacific Ocean, transient killer whales prey on seals, but the local killer whales only eat fish. Tyrannosaurus, a large theropod dinosaur of the Cretaceous, reconstruction, Humans, as omnivores, are to some extent predatory,[187] using weapons and tools to fish,[188] hunt and trap animals. [103], By forming groups, prey can often reduce the frequency of encounters with predators because the visibility of a group does not rise in proportion to its size. Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. In an excellent and thorough overview of our problem, Ending Rape Illiteracy, published yesterday in the Nation, Jessica Valenti, coauthor along with Jaclyn Friedman of Yes Means Yes! [28][30] There is a continuum of search modes with intervals between periods of movement ranging from seconds to months. Competition and predation are ecological relationships but are not symbiotic. 141-57, doi:10.1086/676644. [73][113][114] Such distastefulness or toxicity is brought about by chemical defences, found in a wide range of prey, especially insects, but the skunk is a dramatic mammalian example. ", 10.1641/0006-3568(2004)054[0755:WATEOF]2.0.CO;2, "Predators Reduce Prey Population Growth by Inducing Changes in Prey Behavior", "What Drives the 10-year Cycle of Snowshoe Hares? Sharks, sunfish, Insectivorous birds and shrews are almost always moving while web-building spiders, aquatic invertebrates, praying mantises and kestrels rarely move. [143] Predators limit the growth of prey both by consuming them and by changing their behavior. He denied the allegations. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2, 2014, pp. This differs from ambush predation in that the predator adjusts its attack according to how the prey is moving. [73] Fish and other predators have developed the ability to crush or open the armoured shells of molluscs. [138] This means that many predators must contend with intraguild predation, where other predators kill and eat them. The decision depends on the costs and benefits involved. Many examples of non consumptive effects of predators can be found in the scientific literature. Carnivores that feed on herbivores are secondary consumers; their predators are tertiary consumers, and so forth. Some of the first fish to have jaws were the armoured and mainly predatory placoderms of the Silurian to Devonian periods, one of which, the 6 m (20 ft) Dunkleosteus, is considered the world's first vertebrate "superpredator", preying upon other predators. [30][25][31][32] The sit-and-wait method is most suitable if the prey are dense and mobile, and the predator has low energy requirements. [73][100] Among the many mechanisms of camouflage are countershading[83] and disruptive coloration. [131][132] On the other hand, the fitness cost of a given lost dinner is unpredictable, as the predator may quickly find better prey. [202] In ancient Rome, and in ancient Egypt, the wolf was worshipped, the she-wolf appearing in the founding myth of Rome, suckling Romulus and Remus. For other uses, see, Biodiversity maintained by apex predation. The makeup of this type of population would show phenotypes (individuals with groups of traits) of both extremes but have very few individuals in the middle. Journal of Animal Ecology, vol. These very large marine predators feed on plankton, especially krill, diving and actively swimming into concentrations of plankton, and then taking a huge gulp of water and filtering it through their feathery baleen plates. Predation dates from before the rise of commonly recognized carnivores by hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of years. Omissions? [a][34] With static prey, some predators can learn suitable patch locations and return to them at intervals to feed. [103], Eggs and nestlings are particularly vulnerable to predation, so birds take measures to protect their nests. Two mid-sized predators, dogs and cats, are the animals most often kept as pets in western societies. [96][97][12][98], Prey can avoid detection by predators with morphological traits and coloration that make them hard to detect. [184][185] [157], A range of mathematical models have been developed by relaxing the assumptions made in the Lotka-Volterra model; these variously allow animals to have geographic distributions, or to migrate; to have differences between individuals, such as sexes and an age structure, so that only some individuals reproduce; to live in a varying environment, such as with changing seasons;[158][159] and analysing the interactions of more than just two species at once. [25] Where food is found in patches, such as rare shoals of fish in a nearly empty ocean, the search stage requires the predator to travel for a substantial time, and to expend a significant amount of energy, to locate each food patch. [120] Mechanical defences include sharp spines, hard shells and tough leathery skin or exoskeletons, all making prey harder to kill. In that area, wolves are both keystone species and apex predators. This may involve ambush or pursuit predation, sometimes after stalking the prey. Among the largest predators that have ever lived were the theropod dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus from the Cretaceous period. [201], In mythology and folk fable, predators such as the fox and wolf have mixed reputations. [199], Among poetry on the theme of predation, a predator's consciousness might be explored, such as in Ted Hughes's Pike. For example, when mixed flocks of birds forage, the birds in front flush out insects that are caught by the birds behind. They are common among insects, including mantids, dragonflies, lacewings and scorpionflies. Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey.It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the host) and parasitoidism (which always does, eventually). Prey are also more vigilant if they smell predators. Many butterflies and moths have eyespots, wing markings that resemble eyes. Metadata analyses have pointed towards resource dynamics, predator hunting mode, habitat domain, and organismal/environmental characteristics some factors that could influence the presence or strength of non consumptive effects [173][174][175]. The method is used by human hunter-gatherers and by canids such as African wild dogs and domestic hounds. [77][78] The specialists may be highly adapted to capturing their preferred prey, whereas generalists may be better able to switch to other prey when a preferred target is scarce.

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