Ideal free distribution of Daphnia under predation risk-model predictions and experimental verification.

ABSTRACT: The vertical distribution of planktonic animals, such as Daphnia, in overlapping gradients of food concentration and risk of visual predation should depend on Daphnia population density and should be the result of the group effect of optimizing decisions taken by each individual (juvenile or adult), trading-off a high growth rate to low mortality risk. We tested this hypothesis by comparing the theoretical distributions from simulations based on an experimentally parameterized, optimizing individual-based model (consistent with the assumptions of the concept of the interference ideal free distribution with costs) with distributions observed in laboratory experiments. The simulations were generated for two scenarios, where the shape of the functional response of fish is consis

SUBMITTER: Maszczyk P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6055580 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature