Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 7: Posters: Statistical Physics in Biological Systems

BP 7.5: Poster

Monday, March 14, 2011, 17:15–20:00, P3

Coexistence of mass-selective predators feeding on a growing prey — •Laurin Lengert, Christian Guill, and Barbara Drossel — TU Darmstadt, Institut für Festkörperphysik

The body mass of an organism affects many ecologically relevant quantities, such as maximal food ingestion and respiration rate, population growth rate, carrying capacity, and prey choice.

Many empirical studies confirm that the body masses of predator and prey are positively correlated and the attack rate has been revealed as being a hump shaped function of the body mass ratio between predator and prey.

In natural food webs, species ontogeny, especially growth in body mass, alters body mass ratios. When considering seasonal species, the correlation between prey and predator body mass leads to a variation of the food web structure.

We present for the first time a model that includes several predator species, together with a prey that grows in size, leading to time dependent attack rates.

We will focus on the question how prey growth affects the coexistence of predators.