Posts Tagged: predation

Predation rate (PR) and kill rate are both fundamental statistics for understanding predation. However, relatively little is known about how these statistics relate to one another and how they relate to prey population dynamics. We assess these relationships across three … read more

Predator kills rate (i.e., kills per predator per time) is routinely presupposed to depend exclusively on prey density. However, per capita rates of killing may typically depend on the density of both prey and predator. Unfortunately, our perception of many … read more

Dogs have been employed to protect an array of resources from various species of offending wildlife. Historically, livestock protection dogs (LPDs) protected domestic sheep and goats from predators based on development of a strong bond between protected and protector. Within … read more

Increasing mortality rates in diseased populations can retard disease transmission and reduce disease prevalence (Barlow 1996, Lafferty and Holt 2003, Packer et al. 2003, Ostfeld and Holt 2004). Increasing mortality slows transmission via two mechanisms. First, it reduces the average … read more

Large carnivores, such as gray wolves, Canis lupus, are difficult to protect in mixed-use landscapes because some people perceive them as dangerous and because they sometimes threaten human property and safety. Governments may respond by killing carnivores in an effort … read more

Effective measures for controlling chronic wasting disease (CWD), a contagious prion disease of cervids, remain elusive. We review theoretic relationships between predation and hostparasite dynamics and describe a mathematical model to evaluate the potential influence of random removal through harvest … read more