PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 104: Predator - Prey Ecology: Communities; Defenses
Wednesday, August 10, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 521 A, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Emergent effects of multiple natural enemies.
Cameron, Thomas*,1, Wearing, Helen2, 3, Rohani, Pejman2, Sait, Steven 1, 1 Dept. of Ecology & Evolution, Leeds, UK2 Institute of Ecology, Athens, GA, USA3 Dept. of Zoology, Cambridge, UK
ABSTRACT- Species rarely interact with only one other species. We describe a series of laboratory microcosm experiments that explore the interactions between a prey species and two competing predators, one a generalist bug, the other a specialist pathogen. We show that the patterns in abundance and time to extinction of all three species are sensitive to the specific life histories of the enemies. Thus, we show that the impact of natural enemies on community structure and dynamics may be heavily dependent on the particular members of that community.
Key words: Predator, Prey, Generalist, Specialist