DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The Effect of Predator and Prey Spatial Scales on Stability in a Rosenzweig-MacArthur Framework

猎物与捕食者和竞争物种群体相互作用，必须平衡收集资源和避免被吃掉的冲突需求。资源竞争和捕食之间的相互作用可以用钻石食物网来概括，在钻石食物网中，一个捕食者以共享共同资源的两种不同类型的猎物为食。基于混合良好的非空间系统的当前生态理论的预测常常与实验结果相矛盾。本研究采用微分方程和模拟模型相结合的方法，考察了捕食者和捕食者对空间利用的差异对捕食和竞争之间相互作用的影响。研究将重点关注捕食者和猎物使用或防御的场地大小的差异对共存的影响，以及猎物分组对资源利用和捕食者回避之间平衡的影响。它建立在当前关于空间对简单的捕食者-猎物相互作用的影响，地点之间差异的影响以及在混合良好的系统中捕食对资源竞争的影响理论的研究基础上。这项研究的智力价值在于，它将告诉生物学家，在哪些条件下，捕食者和猎物的空间尺度和分布差异对群落动态是重要的。这项研究的广泛影响将产生软件包和其他教育效益。

Prey interact with their predators and a community of competing species, and must balance the conflicting needs of gathering resources and avoiding being eaten. The interaction between competition for resources and predation is summarized using a diamond food web, where one predator feeds on two alternative types of prey sharing a common resource. Predictions from current ecological theory, based on well-mixed, non-spatial systems, often contradict experimental results. The proposed research examines the effect of differences in the use of space by the prey and predator on the interaction between predation and competition using a combination of differential equation and simulation models. The research will focus on how coexistence is affected by differences in the size of sites used or defended by predators and prey, and the influence of prey grouping on the balance between resource utilization and predator avoidance. It builds on current research concerning the effect of space on simple predator-prey interactions, the effect of differences between sites and the theory of the effect of predation on resource competition in well-mixed systems. The proposed research's intellectual merit is that it will inform biologists about the conditions under which differences in predator and prey spatial scales and distributions are important to community dynamics. The broad impact of this research will produce software package and other educational benefits.