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Predator-Prey Interactions

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Predators consume prey for energy. Predators that acquire prey and prey that avoid predation both increase their chances of survival and reproduction (i.e., fitness). Routine predator-prey interactions elicit mutual adaptations that improve predator offenses, such as claws, teeth, and speed, as well as prey defenses, including crypsis, aposematism, and mimicry. Thus, predator-prey interactions resemble an evolutionary arms race.Although predation is commonly associated with carnivory, for...

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Instinctive Drift

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 12, 2026

A Real-Time Interactive System for Studying Confrontational Pursuit Behavior in Rodents

A Real-Time Interactive System for Studying Confrontational Pursuit Behavior in Rodents

Published on: May 16, 2025

Risky prey behavior evolves in risky habitats.

¹School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, 370 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA. urban@nceas.ucsb.edu

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

|August 29, 2007

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Prey evolve riskier foraging behaviors when predators are gape-limited, especially if it leads to size refuges. This adaptation occurs even at microgeographic scales, influenced by local selection and gene flow.

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Area of Science:

Behavioral Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Predator-Prey Dynamics

Background:

Traditional theory predicts prey reduce foraging under predation risk.
An alternative view suggests increased foraging can be adaptive for growth into size refuges.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how gape-limited predation and spatial location influence foraging, growth, and survival in salamander larvae.
To test if prey evolve riskier foraging in high-predation environments.

Main Methods:

Common garden experiments with Ambystoma maculatum larvae from 10 populations.
Assessing foraging rates, survival, and growth under varying predation risk from Ambystoma opacum.

Main Results:

Salamander larvae from high-predation populations foraged more actively.
Higher foraging rates correlated with lower survival in the presence of free-ranging predators.
Risky foraging evolved in habitats with gape-limited predators.

Conclusions:

Prey can evolve riskier foraging under predation threat if it facilitates entry into size refuges.
Foraging behavior evolves at microgeographic scales, influenced by local adaptation and gene flow.
Local selection and spatial location jointly shape species interactions across landscapes.