Predation
Predators kill and eat other organisms, driving evolution.
InsektenDoku · CC BY-SA 4.0
The concept of predation is broad and defined differently in different contexts.[1] Some relationships that result in the prey's death are not necessarily called predation.[1] At the most fundamental level, predation involves one organism killing and consuming another.[1]
Quick Facts
- Type
- Biological interaction
- Key organisms
- Predators (e.g., mammals, birds, arthropods, cnidarians, plants, fungi, protozoa, bacteria)
- Prey types
- Other organisms (including seeds, eggs, phytoplankton, and microorganisms)
- Evolutionary role
- Major driver of evolution since the Cambrian
Facts from the source article.
Key facts and history
A predator differs from a parasitoid in that it has many prey captured over its lifetime.[1] Micropredators are small animals that feed entirely on other organisms, including fleas and mosquitoes that consume blood.[2] Many species of protozoa and bacteria prey on other microorganisms.[3] To feed, a predator must search for, pursue and kill its prey.[4]
An ichneumon wasp, a type of parasitoid, deposits its eggs onto or inside a host; upon hatching, the larvae consume the host, leading to its certain death.[1] This behavior is typically categorized by zoologists as a type of parasitism, even though the conventional understanding is that parasites do not cause the death of their hosts.[1] Predators exist across a wide array of taxonomic groups, including arthropods, not just the well-known mammals and birds.[5]
What the research sources say
The Open Library record for "Biodiversity and Insect Pests" lists its publisher as Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, John and its publication year as 2012.[6] The Open Library record for "Evolutionary Ecology" lists its publisher as Oxford University Press, USA and its publication date as October 25, 2001.[7] The Open Library record for "Plant-animal interactions" lists its publisher as Blackwell Science and its publication year as 2002.[8]
References
- Wikipedia, "Predation" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gurr, "Biodiversity and Insect Pests: Key Issues for Sustainable Management", John Wiley & Sons, 2012, p. 105; Lafferty, "Trophic strategies, animal diversity and body size", Trends Ecol. Evol., 2002, p. 507–513 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Predation" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Poulin, "Evolution of parasitism along convergent lines: from ecology to genomics", Parasitology, February 2015, p. S6–S15; Poulin, "Advances in Parasitology Volume 74", 2011, p. 1–40; Bengtson, S., "The fossil record of predation. The Paleontological Society Papers 8", The Paleontological Society, 2002, p. 289–317; Janzen, "Seed Predation by Animals", Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 1971, p. 465–492; Nilsson, "Egg predation in forest bird communities on islands and mainland", Oecologia, 1985, p. 511–515; Hulme, "Plant animal Intera en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Predation" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Velicer, "Bacterial predators", Cell, 2007, p. R55–R56; Stevens, Alison N. P., "Predation, Herbivory, and Parasitism", Nature Education Knowledge, 2010, p. 36; Jurkevitch, "Predatory Prokaryotes", Springer, 2006, p. 11–56; Hansen, "Zooplankton grazing and growth: Scaling within the 2-2,-μm body size range", Limnology and Oceanography, 1997, p. 687–704 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Predation" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Griffiths, "Foraging costs and relative prey size", The American Naturalist, November 1980, p. 743–752; Wetzel, "Limnological Analyses", 2000, p. 257–262 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Predation" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Stevens, Alison N. P., "Predation, Herbivory, and Parasitism", Nature Education Knowledge, 2010, p. 36 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Open Library record, ISBN 9781118231852 ("Biodiversity and Insect Pests"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org
- Open Library record, ISBN 9780195131543 ("Evolutionary Ecology"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org
- Open Library record, ISBN 9780632052677 ("Plant-animal interactions"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Predation (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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