PARENT SESSION
Oral Session 11: Predator - Prey Ecology I: Modeling.
Presiding: L Prugh
Monday, August 2, 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM, Meeting Room C 124.

Incorporating vigilance into a theoretical model of intra-guild predation.

Kimbrell, Tristan^*,1, Holt, Robert¹, Lundberg, Per², ¹ University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA² Lund University, Lund, Sweden

ABSTRACT- Intra-guild predation (IGP) appears to be a common feature of natural communities, and has been predicted to be important in structuring species interactions. Theoretical models of IGP incorporate direct effects of IG predators and IG prey on resources (mortality rate of resources), but rarely include indirect effects on resources, such as increased vigilance by resources with increasing IG predator and IG prey density. We incorporate resource vigilance into a differential equation model of intra-guild predation, and use this model to explore the stability and dynamical consequences of resource vigilance. Furthermore, we use this framework to hypothesize about the importance of resource vigilance in mammalian systems with IGP. In mammalian systems, IG predators rarely consume IG prey; it has been suggested that IG predators kill IG prey to decrease predation by IG prey on shared resources. We suggest that the reduction in IG prey may also act to decrease vigilance by resources, thereby increasing attacks rates by IG predators on resources. The dynamical consequences of IGP with no consumption of IG prey by IG predators are explored.

Key words: vigilance, intra-guild predation, cheetahs