Part IV Foraging Ecology [...]... Individual-based models made it easier to incorporate realistic spatial information about the landscape and details of individual foraging behavior Individual-based models also permit investigators to explore the implications of alternative scenarios As with the bison and elk foraging model, most individual-based models begin with the investigator giving each individual a set of rules that define its behavior, ... Population Dynamics for Foraging Before discussing how foraging behavior can govern population dynamics, we will briefly consider how the dynamics of the resource base should influence how foraging behavior evolves Foraging and Population Dynamics Life in a Fluctuating World: Implications for Foraging Strategies The magnitude and unpredictability of environmental variation strongly affects foraging strategies... predator-free islands provided temporary refugia where the preferred prey could increase when rare Thus, a bottom-up approach that explicitly included space and stochasticity yielded a different result than a top-down approach to the same problem with mean-field dynamics The bottom-up approach of Kimbrell and Holt (2005) also permitted them to explore evolution’s influence on individual foraging behavior. .. environments) In turn, foraging behaviors can determine population persis- Foraging and Population Dynamics tence and dynamic patterns such as population cycles Predator switching provides an example of a foraging behavior that can either stabilize or destabilize population dynamics, depending on the circumstances, and can also influence species coexistence The interplay of foraging and population dynamics... Fryxell and Lundberg (1998) provide a monographic overview of the integration of behavioral and community ecology, touching on many topics we have discussed in this chapter Ovadia and Schmitz (2002) provide an excellent empirical study of how trade-offs between foraging and predator avoidance can have major consequences for species’ abundances in a food chain interaction involving plants, grasshoppers, and. .. population ecology will be the explicit incorporation of insights from foraging theory 11. 9 Summary Foraging strategies have profound consequences for population dynamics because they can determine population growth rates in both predators and prey and ultimately influence average abundances as well as the pattern of fluctuations in abundance The Arctic lynx-hare system shows how foraging behaviors link... within-generation behavioral response (Bernstein 2000) More recently, ecologists have argued that the persistence of intrinsically unstable predator-prey systems may depend on the interplay of population dynamics, foraging, and spatial structure This idea has implications for how one views the evolutionary dynamics of foraging behaviors As section 11. 5 explained, the evolution of optimal predator foraging. .. the potential importance of subtle differences in foraging behavior for population dynamics and species coexistence An open challenge is relating these theoretical possibilities to real systems 11. 8 Prospectus We could explore many other aspects of the interface between foraging and population dynamics For instance, we have largely focused on how predators’ 393 394 Robert D Holt and Tristan Kimbrell foraging. .. Third, the combination of strategic top-down models and more detailed individual-based simulations provides a useful way to analyze the relationship between foraging and population dynamics Agreement between multiple modeling approaches can confirm the generality of results, while disagreements highlight the need for further investigations 11. 7 Optimal Foraging and Species Coexistence In the previous... switching behaviors could regulate population dynamics One reason this may be important is that predator switching can potentially promote the coexistence of prey species (Murdoch and Oaten 1975; Roughgarden and Feldman 1975) If so, then foraging ecology may have profound consequences for maintaining species diversity In this section, we will explore some potential implications of predator foraging . Part IV Foraging Ecology