Effects of predator-rey-body-mass ratios and habitat structure on functional responses

功能反应描述了捕食者的人均消费率依赖于猎物丰度（捕食者依赖功能反应），或捕食者和猎物丰度（捕食者依赖功能反应）。这些模型的各种参数随生境结构而变化。不同的功能反应模型预测非常不同的消费率，在自然食物网中的捕食者和猎物种群之间的能量通量的分析需要描述的功能反应的每一个相互作用。自然食物网中大量的捕食者-猎物相互作用使得这项任务变得棘手，从而严重限制了我们对复杂食物网（“定量食物网”）中能量通量的理解。在这个应用中，我们提出了一种方法来估计参数的猎物和捕食者依赖的功能反应的基础上捕食者-猎物的身体质量比和栖息地结构。实验室实验与地面居住的蜘蛛和甲虫作为捕食者和弹尾虫，苍蝇和甲虫幼虫作为猎物将进行，以确保广泛的一般性，我们的结果在不同的组合下的捕食者和猎物类型不同的栖息地结构。确定身体质量比对功能反应的影响的一般性将是复杂食物网中定量能量通量的一般模型的重要一步。

Functional responses describe the per capita consumption rates of predators in dependence on prey abundance (prey-dependent functional responses), or predator and prey abundances (predator dependent functional responses). The various parameters of these models vary with habitat structure. Different functional response models predict very different consumption rates, and analyses of energy fluxes between predator and prey populations in natural food webs require descriptions of the functional response of each interaction. The high number of predator-prey interactions in natural food webs makes this task intractable thus seriously limiting our understanding of energy fluxes in complex food webs (“quantitative food webs”). In this application, we present an approach to estimating the parameters of prey- and predator-dependent functional responses based on predator-prey body-mass ratios and habitat structure. Laboratory experiments with ground-dwelling spiders and beetles as predators and collembolans, flies and beetle larvae as prey will be carried out to ensure a broad generality of our results across different combinations of predator and prey types under varying habitat structure. Identifying generalities in body-mass ratio effects on functional response will be an important step towards a general model of quantitative energy fluxes in complex food webs.