Behavioral interference and facilitation in the foraging cycle shape the functional response

P. Anders Nilsson, Per Lundberg, Christer Brönmark, Anders Persson and Håkan Turesson

Behavioral Ecology, 2007, vol. 18, issue 2, 354-357

Abstract: Individual forager behaviors should affect per capita intake rates and thereby population and consumer-resource properties. We consider and incorporate conspecific facilitation and interference during the separate foraging-cycle stages in a functional response model that links individual behavioral interactions with consumer-resource processes. Our analyses suggest that failing to properly consider and include all effects of behavioral interactions on foraging-cycle stage performances may either over- or underestimate effects of interactions on the shape of both functional responses and predator zero-growth isoclines. Incorporation of prey- and predator-dependent interactions among foragers in the model produces predator isoclines with potentials for highly complex consumer-resource dynamics. Facilitation and interference during the foraging cycle are therefore suggested as potent behavioral mechanisms to cause patterns of community dynamics. We emphasize that correct estimations of interaction-mediated foraging-cycle efficiencies should be considered in empirical and theoretical attempts to further our understanding of the mechanistic link between social behaviors and higher order processes. Copyright 2007, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2007
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