Dissertation Research: The Impact of Predator-Predator Interactions on Prey Population Dynamics

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

9521549 Denno Nearly all predator-prey systems involve predator complexes comprised of multiple predator species. Evidence from several systems demonstrates that the total impact of a predator complex can not be measured by summing the impacts of the individual predators. This suggests that many predators are interacting with each other either synergistically, when predators facilitate each other's performance, or antagonistically, when predators interfere with each other's feeding or foraging. The goal of this research is to quantify and identify the mechanism for the interactions between ground and foliar aphid predators across a wide range of conditions in an alfalfa agroecosystem. Preliminary evidence from this agroecosystem suggests that foliar-foraging predators of aphids interact synergistically with ground-foraging predators of aphids. Evidence from other preliminary studies suggests that the mechanism driving this interaction is aphid dropping behavior induced by foliar predators which makes the aphids more susceptible to ground predators. The results of this project will have broad implications for basic predator-prey theory. In addition, they will foster advances in the use of these predators for the biological control of insect pests.