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Today we focus on trophic webs generated by secondary production.

Original idea that dense life around vents relied on marine snow (i.e. photosynthesis)
Eventually learned hydrogen sulfide was the key typically highly toxic to most
known organisms. Primary production via chemosynthesis (not photosynthesis)
Chemosynthetic bacteria form thick mats attracting grazers such as amphipods and
copepods.

Food web base: Sulpher fixing bacteria. Tubeworms have red plumes which contain
hemoglobin. Hemoglobin combines hydrogen sulfide and transfers it to the bacteria
living inside the worm. In return the bacteria nourish the worm with carbon
compounds.
Other web members: shrimp, tubeworms, clams, fish, crabs, octopi.
All are adapted to extreme environment -- complete darkness; 2C ambient water to
400C (vent openings); pressures hundreds of times that at sea level; and high
concentrations of sulfides and other noxious chemicals.

Before we get to Predation, we first must characterize those plant predators herbivores
Defined: Derives energy from plant material
Grazers consume greens, typically on / near ground

Consumes woody plants (greens and woody material / bark). Typically off the ground.

Messor barbarus, a grain eating ant is common on the Mediterranean coastline.

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Derive energy from the capture, killing and consumption of living heterotrophs.
Tiger sharks attacking a humpback whale
Carnivores are categorized by hunting method where as herbivores are segregated by
preferred forage type

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What kinds of adaptions would you expect to see in herbivores vs in carnivores?

Herbivores: adaptations to overcome plant defences digestive enzymes, specialized
teeth, double stomachs of ruminants
Carnivores: adaptations to overcome animal defences detection, capture and
consumption.

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Patterns of sensory input (sight, smell, hearing, echolocation, pressure gradients,

electromagnetic fields..) that are associated with prey are learned by predators
SEARCH IMAGE
Salmon eating resident killer whales (loud, physically obvious) vs marine mammal hunting
transient killer whales (silent, cryptic to avoid detection)

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A successful predator is often an invisible one. Snow Leopard

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Argali rams cryptic coloration but other defenses tooincrease detection by relying
on heard

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Especially common in visual predators

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Much is made of owl eyesight - but in fact it is highly adapted for sound. An owl will
recognize a certain sound patterns from the forest floor
as a foraging mouse

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Canadian long Eared Owl

Feather and head construction of the owl act as parabolic dishes, collecting and
focusing sound to the ears, easily distinguishing prey noises from other ambient noise.

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When per capita consumption can be increased

Likewise group cooperation is preferred by prey (schooling etc) when per capita
mortality risk decreases

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Experiment demonstrating that the per capita success in bird flocks increases with
flock size i.e. cooperation does pay in some cases.

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Having more musk ox would provide better protection against wolves. Why arent
musk ox herds really large ..like bison?
Because unlike bison musk ox live in very low productivity habitat. A larger herd
would experience starvation and therefore undermine the benefits of additional
protection from predators.
How is the fine balance achieved? --- Trial and error which is the basis of
adaptation / evolution

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Which is the cause and which is the effect; wolf pack size or musk ox herd size?
Larger musk ox groups afford greater protection to the group. However, larger groups
require greater amounts of food but they live in a very low productivity habitat. So
there is a tradeoff.
Reducing predation risk always has energetic trade-offs no matter what species the
prey isexamples? Large group size, armor, repellent chemicals, behaviors
What explains difference in winter and summer data group size? Opportunity of other
prey means wolves not as persistent (desperate) and therefore smaller herd size
necessary for same level of defence.

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Eyes are a primary search image therefore prey use this in their own defence

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Red Queen: "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. Lewis
Carroll
In more ecological general terms:
In any adaptive system that encompasses competitive interactions (i.e. anything
involving life), continuing adaptation is needed just in order to persist. Thus,
persistence by definition incorporates the capacity to adapt (change) over time.
Red Queen hypothesis underlies the dynamic evolution of the predation / competition
processes.

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Abalone stopped being cryptic when sea otters disappeared. Now otters are returning
and abalone are again adopting cryptic (burying) behaviour. What mechanism would
explain how this is accomplished?
Those (few) abalones that maintained the bury behaviour would, upon reappearance
of the otter, experience significantly lower predation pressure and therefore increase
their numbers disproportionately in subsequent generations. Over generations the
increased success of the bury behaviour ensures it become the dominant in the
population.

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Various toxins / stinging components are common in terrestrial plants aimed at

discouraging herbivores and other species (nesters etc). This strategy is absent in
marine plantswhy might that be so?
Too great an energy sink in an energetically restricted environment?
These in picture are all hydroids (an animal, not plant) native to the IndoPacific. All
are capable of stinging in the same way their close relatives jellyfish and anemones.
Animals (consumers) have access to the required energy density in their food to adopt
this (stinging) strategy that is simply not a option for marine plants but given the
greater access to nutrients on land, is an option for some terrestrial plants.

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When humans are the predator we work to get around natural feed back loops
Collapse of Atlantic cod in 1992. In late 1950s a new suite of technologies led to the
introduction of offshore bottom trawlers (red circle) which began exploiting very deep
waters that had up to that point been a sanctuary for cod, especially large old
individuals. Catch skyrocketed and a strong decline in biomass resulted.
Internationally agreed quotas in the early 1970s slowed decline but then the
declaration by Canada of an Exclusive Fishing Zone in 1977 (green circle). This
national quota systems ultimately failed to stop, never mind reverse the decline.

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In natural populations, as the abundance of prey decreases the predation pressure

decreases too (predators will turn to more plentiful prey and/or will decrease via
starvation or reduced reproduction and recruitment). The decrease in predation
pressure allows the prey population to recover (increase reproduction and
recruitment). And so predator and prey co-vary through time, oscillating up and down.
When humans are the predator, we often increase, not decrease predation pressure in
the face of declining prey abundance. In the case of Atlantic cod, decreasing catches
were offset by increasing fishing pressure in an attempt to maintain a constant
economic return. So, as stock abundance declined, predation did not decrease but
instead increased leading to a complete collapse.a scenario that would be
extremely difficult for any non-human predator to replicate.

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Theses silversides have been reared for five generations in laboratory experiments, are
all the same age. All fish shown here are from the fifth generation of each experimental
population. The fish on the left are from from populations in which only large
individuals were harvested over five generations; the fish in the middle are from
populations from which fish were harvested at random over five generations; and the
fish on the right are from populations from which only small fish were harvested over
five generations.

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Two populations of silversides are exposed to different predation regimes. To say if

predation has had an effect we measure individuals after five generations. The green
data reflect fish sizes from a population where only the largest individuals were
predated upon and the blue population only the smallest. Are the two populations
scientifically different wrt size after five generations?
It is not just the differences in the mean size that matters. Here we have three possible
scenarios. In each the difference of the means is the same, but the variation within in
group differs. In which scenario would you have the most confidence in concluding
yes, there is a difference? (bottom plot). In which scenario would you be most likely
to conclude No, there is no difference? (middle). Note that in all three scenarios, the
mean (average) difference in size remains constant. So, BOTH mean and variation
around that mean are necessary before judgment can be made We learn to assess
situation like this quantitatively.

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The impact of harves0ng larger individuals can be profound: The smaller (and
younger) the mother sh, the poorer her eggs are provisioned leading to reduced
survival and popula0on decline.

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Cod response to human predation: Life is short get young out early (cost? fewer
young per female) but fishing pressure remains

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Why? Because we as a species can bring to bear much stronger and more persistent
selection pressure than any other agent in a natural system.

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Numerous countermeasures to blunt the success (and therefore effect) of predators. In

the case of snow geese, the closer the hatching date is to the peak date the greater
success rate of fledging. Therefore coordinated collective action (refined by thousands
of generations of evolution (aka trial and error) ) by many can sometimes increase
benefit for each participating individual.

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Locust swarms occur when populations of locust become dense. The crowding forces
larvae in the ground to touch and this constant touching triggers a change in their usual
solitary behavior.
Constant steady emergence would allow predator density to grow to optimal size to
harvest locusts periodic explosion swamps low density of predators.

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Optimizing the ratio of energy spent in pursuit of food vs. energy gained by
consuming food.

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Honey bee: must determine at what point to move onto a new blossom maximize
harvest - Energy limited. The cost of foraging is high and therefore must ensure energy
intake exceeds energy spent, but time is not the limiting factor.

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Kalahari ground squirrel: Builds up heat load while foraging and must return to
burrow to dump heat. The cost of foraging is temporal the longer it takes, the
riskier it becomes.
Both time and energy maximizers operate on the basis of maximizing energy
acquisition / time but different pressures.

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Regardless if you are time or energy limited, there are two major considerations:
i) Optimize what you eat (maximize benefit)
ii) Optimize how you move about your environment foraging (minimize cost)
Is optimal foraging hard wired in organism or learned?
(in many cases, especially K-selected species, likely a bit of both, but core foundation
is hard wired)

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Fitness in the ecological sense = a quantitative measure reproductive output.

Foraging efficiency results in more offspring offspring reflect parents efficiency via
DNA

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Specialist vs generalist?

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Specialist high energy expenditure in search but high trophic efficiency

Generalist Low energy expenditure in search but low trophic efficiency

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Line over the variable = mean

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The bottom line is read as:

The new item should be included if the average energy gained minus the handling
costs of item i is greater than the old diet plus the now additional search time cost
The key here is that if the forager passes on the new item i, it incurs a cost of
additional search time.

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Search time equal for all three preys species however handling costs of rabbit and
gopher too great for kestral. Red tailed hawk but handling time differs greatly.but
so does the payoff. But handling time (costs) increases from small to large prey are not
as great as profit.
For the hawk, arrow thickness depicts preference (all things being equal like relative
abundance of each prey species).
Thus the strength of feedback linking mouse and kestral is much higher than hawk and
gopher (or hawk and any prey).

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You optimize your purchasing decisions just as any other organism might but using
slightly different currency

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Use u-pick berries as example. You dont stay in a particular position until every last
berry is picked you move to the next position when the rate of berries picked drops
below a threshold.if you are to be an optimal harvester, what is that threshold?

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Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump

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Cumulative energy gain is constant for any patch, regardless of distance from other
patch. What is optimal is the tangent of the line determined by its origin.
Tt1 is short travel time (eg. picking berries on a farm) therefore the maximum benefit is
had by moving to a fresh path early
Tt2 is long travel time (eg. picking wild berries) therefore to profit maximally the
higher cost of travel forces the consumer to remain in patch longer than if travel time
was less.

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i)

is a behavioral response

ii) is a demographic response

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