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Classic example of predator-prey dynamics: Canadian lynx & snowshoe hare

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Classic example of predator-prey dynamics: Canadian lynx & snowshoe hare

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  1. Predation is a straight-forward interspecies population interaction. One species uses another as a food resource. Predators play an important role in controlling prey population numbers in some systems. In simple systems, the predator-prey relationship results in coupled population osscilations

  2. Classic example of predator-prey dynamics: Canadian lynx & snowshoe hare Coupled oscillation

  3. prey numbers increase, predator numbers increase…to a point where the predation causes population decline in the prey item..

  4. These dramas are the (proverbial) tip of the iceberg. Ecological community interactions are extremely complex…

  5. Pisaster: The quintessential Keystone Predator!?

  6. Robert Paine (1969)

  7. Removing the starfish resulted in a massive change in the diversity of the system wherein one species crowded out others

  8. Predators, that are NOT directly interacting, but are ecologically interdependent Herbivores, that are competing, and also prey items Here is the ecological story: In competition, the larger Daphnia will outcompete the smaller Daphnia. The salamanders eat the larger Daphnia, allowing the smaller Daphnia to persist. The midge can ONLY eat the smaller Daphnia. Thus, where the salamander larva is present, the midge larva do well… because they control the population of the midge prey’s competitor.

  9. example of a typical ecological interaction?

  10. resource example of a typical ecological interaction?

  11. 30 boxes, one form of interaction… = 28 million pathways… What do we do with systems where there are multiple modes of interaction, and more species (LCW = 300 species of herbaceous plant)

  12. Regulation of community structure… Top-down regulation, keystone predators and the trophic cascade. Are all different terms for the same effect. Predators control the food web structure through predation. Trophic cascade is particularly, and specifically, focused on the influence of predators controlling food web structure from the top of the food web. George Monbiot

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