Size-dependent functional response of Xenopus laevis on mosquito larvae
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Animal Behavior, Ecology, Zoology
- Keywords
- attack rate, handling time, functional response, predator, size
- Copyright
- © 2018 Thorp 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
- 2018. Size-dependent functional response of Xenopus laevis on mosquito larvae. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26575v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26575v1
Abstract
Predators can play an important role in regulating prey abundance and diversity, determining food web structure and function, and contributing to important ecosystem services, including the regulation of agricultural pests and disease vectors. Thus, the ability to predict predator impact on prey is an important goal in ecology. Often predators of the same species are assumed to be functionally equivalent, despite considerable individual variation in predator traits known to be important for shaping predator-prey interactions, like body size. This assumption may greatly oversimplify our understanding of within species functional diversity and undermine our ability to predict predator effects on prey. Here we examine the degree to which predator-prey interactions are functionally homogenous across a natural range of predator body size. Specifically, we quantify the size-dependence of the functional response of African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis) preying on mosquito larvae (Culex pipiens). Three size classes of predators, small (15-30mm snout-vent length), medium (50-60mm) and large (105-120mm), were presented with five densities of prey to determine functional response type and to estimate search efficiency and handling time parameters generated from the models. The results of mesocosm experiments show that functional response of X. laevis changed with size: small predators exhibited a Type II response, while medium and large predators exhibited Type III responses. Both functional response and behavioural data showed an inversely proportional relationship between predator attack rate and predator size. Small and medium predators had highest and lowest handling time respectively. That the functional response changed with the size of predator suggests that predators with overlapping cohorts may have a dynamic impact on prey populations. Therefore, predicting the functional response of a single size-matched predator in an experiment may be a misrepresentation of the predator’s potential impact on a prey population.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Supplemental Information
Functional response data for Xenopus laevis of different size
Columns describe 1. Predator size. 2. The density of prey used. 3. The total number of prey that survived after the experiment was completed. 4. The total number of prey eaten over the duration of the entire experiment.
Video footage data of Xenopus laevis predating
Video footage data collected to calculate the parameters "handling time" and "attack rate". Data is arranged in columns as follows: 1. the different sizes of predators that were analysed 2. the handling time data calculated for each individual predator; 3. the attack rate data calculated for each individual predator; 4. the attack efficiency data calculated for each individual predator which was calculated as the proportion of successful attacks; 5. the attack time data in seconds calculated for each individual predator; 6. the eating time data in seconds calculated for each individual predator.