Evolutionary dynamics of prey exploitation in a metapopulation of predators

The American Naturalist
Bas PelsMaurice W Sabelis

Abstract

In well-mixed populations of predators and prey, natural selection favors predators with high rates of prey consumption and population growth. When spatial structure prevents the populations from being well mixed, such predators may have a selective disadvantage because they do not make full use of the prey's growth capacity and hence produce fewer propagules. The best strategy then depends on the degree to which predators can monopolize the exploitation of local prey populations, which in turn depends on the spatial structure, the number of migrants, and, in particular, the stochastic nature of the colonization process. To analyze the evolutionary dynamics of predators in a spatially structured predator-prey system, we performed simulations with a metapopulation model that has explicit local dynamics of nonpersistent populations, keeps track of the number of emigrants entering the migration pool, assumes individuals within local populations as well as within the migration pool to be well mixed, and takes stochastic colonization into account. We investigated which of the predator's exploitation strategies are evolutionarily stable and whether these strategies minimize the overall density of prey, as is the case in Lotka-Volterr...Continue Reading

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Citations

Aug 11, 2010·Microbial Ecology·Kandikere Ramaiah SridharFelix Bärlocher
Nov 16, 2013·Biochemistry. Biokhimii︠a︡·J J Mitteldorf, C Goodnight
Nov 12, 2013·Journal of Theoretical Biology·Peter A Abrams

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