Predator-Prey Relationships

What is predation an example of?

A biotic factor.

What is predation?

Where an organism (predator) kills and eats another organism (prey).

What type of competition is predation?

Interspecific.

What have predators evolved to become?

Highly efficient at capturing prey, e.g. through sudden bursts of speed, stealth and fast reactions.

What have prey organisms evolved to avoid?

Capture, e.g. camouflage, mimicry, spines.

What is the relationship between predator and prey population sizes?

They are interlinked, as the population of one changes, it causes a change in the other.

How can predator-prey relationships be represented?

On a graph.

What is the pattern of predator-prey relationships?

An increase in the prey population provides more food for the predators, allowing more to survive and reproduce. This in turn results in an increase in the predator population.

What is stage 2 on the predator-prey graph?

The increased predator population eats more prey organisms, causing a decline in the prey population. The death rate of the prey population is greater than its birth rate.

What is stage 3 on the predator-prey graph?

The reduced prey population can no longer support the large predator population. Intraspecific competition for food increases, resulting in a decrease in the size of the predator population.

What is stage 4 on the predator-prey graph?

Reduced predator numbers result in less of the prey population being killed. More prey organisms survive and reproduce, increasing the prey population and then the cycle begins again

What is stage 4 on the predator-prey graph?

What is the complexity of the relationship between predator and prey?

It is rarely as simple as this, other factors like food availability will affect population size. Fluctuations in numbers may also result from seasonal changes in abiotic factors.