How patch size and refuge availability change interaction strength and population dynamics: a combined individual- and population-based modeling experiment
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecology, Mathematical Biology, Zoology
- Keywords
- functional response, habitat loss, habitat complexity, food web, individual-based model, interaction strength, population dynamics, extinction, patch size, ordinary differential equation
- Copyright
- © 2016 Li et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2016. How patch size and refuge availability change interaction strength and population dynamics: a combined individual- and population-based modeling experiment. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2190v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2190v2
Abstract
Knowledge on how functional responses (a measurement of feeding interaction strength) are affected by patch size and habitat complexity (represented by refuge availability) is crucial for understanding food-web stability and subsequently biodiversity. Due to their laborious character, it is almost impossible to carry out systematic empirical experiments on functional responses across wide gradients of patch sizes and refuge availabilities. Here we overcame this issue by using an individual-based model (IBM) to simulate feeding experiments. The model is based on empirically measured traits such as body size dependent speed and capture success. We simulated these experiments in patches ranging from size of petri dishes to natural patches in the field. Moreover, we varied the refuge availability within the patch independently of patch size, allowing for an independent analyses of both variables. The maximum feeding rate (the maximum number of prey a predator can consume in a given time frame) is independent of patch size and refuge availability, as it is the physiological upper limit of feeding rates. Moreover, the results of these simulations revealed that a type III functional response, which is known to have a stabilizing effect on population dynamics, fits the data best. The half saturation density (the prey density where a predator consumes half of its maximum feeding rate) increased with refuge availability but was only marginally influenced by patch size. Subsequently, we investigated how patch size and refuge availability influence stability and coexistence of predator-prey systems. Following common practice, we used an allometric scaled Rosenzweig-MacArthur predator-prey model based on results from our in silico IBM experiments. The results suggested that densities of both populations are nearly constant across the range of patch sizes simulated, resulting from the constant interaction strength across the patch sizes. However, constant densities with decreasing patch sizes mean a decrease of absolute number of individuals, consequently leading to extinction of predators in smallest patches. Moreover, increasing refuge availabilities also allowed predator and prey to coexist by decreased interaction strengths. Our results underline the need for protecting large patches with high habitat complexity to sustain biodiversity.
Author Comment
The manuscript was updated according to reviewer comments during the peer-review process in PeerJ. It includes now a new figure describing the experimental setting of the in silico individual based functional response experiments. Moreover it includes additional simulations, presented in the supplementary information. The main results are now displayed in a figure. The other changes are in the text of the main manuscript.
Supplemental Information
Supplement
Contains the ODD and further information about parameters.