Predation effects on mean time to extinction under demographic stochasticity

JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY

卷:334

Article

Palamara, Gian Marco¹  Delius, Gustav W.²  Smith, Matthew J.³  Petchey, Owen L.¹ 

[1] Univ Zurich, Inst Evolutionary Biol & Environm Studies, Zurich, Switzerland

[2] Univ York, Dept Math, York YO10 5DD, N Yorkshire, England

[3] Microsoft Res, Computat Ecol & Environm Sci Grp, Cambridge, England

关键词: Trophic interaction;    Predator prey model;    Birth and death process;    Quasistationary distribution;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jtbi.2013.06.007

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Methods for predicting the probability and timing of a species' extinction are typically based on single species population dynamics. Assessments of extinction risk often lack effects of interspecific interactions. We study a birth and death process in which the death rate includes an effect of predation. Predation is included via a general nonlinear expression for the functional response of predation to prey density. We investigate the effects of the foraging parameters (e.g. attack rate and handling time) on the mean time to extinction. Mean time to extinction varies by orders of magnitude when we alter the foraging parameters, even when we exclude the effects of these parameters on the equilibrium population size. Conclusions are robust to assumptions about initial conditions and variable predator abundance. These findings clearly show that accounting for the nature of interspecific interactions is likely to be critically important when estimating extinction risk. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free