![]() Such shifts in dominance can have significant dynamic consequences, potentially reducing the propensity and severity of predator-prey oscillations and stabilizing community dynamicsĩ. Prey heterogeneity can mediate trophic-level responses to enrichment and weaken top-down limitation of prey communities by facilitating numerical dominance by defended preyġ2. Our work sheds light on the adaptive value of colony formation and supports the general view that genetic diversity and intraspecific trait variation of prey can play a vital role in the short-term dynamics and stability of planktonic predator-prey systems.Ī large body of theoretical and empirical work has shown that the presence of variation among prey in their susceptibility to predation can have profound impacts on the structure and dynamics of predator-prey communitiesĩ. The size structure of the genetically diverse prey populations diverged from single strain populations in the presence of predators, showing increases in colony size and in the relative abundance of cells found in colonies. However, genetic diversity and predator presence/absence interactively affected prey population abundance and stability diversity of prey had no effects in the absence of predators but stabilized dynamics and increased total prey abundance in the presence of predators. Dynamics measured over the last 127 days of the 167-day experiment revealed no effects of initial prey genetic diversity on the average abundance or temporal variability of predator populations. Prey populations of either low initial genetic diversity and low adaptive capacity or high initial genetic diversity and high adaptive capacity were crossed with predator presence and absence. ![]() Synura petersenii, a colony-forming alga that exhibits genetic variation in its propensity to form colonies and colony size (larger colonies are a defense against predators). We tested this experimentally using a laboratory aquatic system composed of the rotiferīrachionus calyciflorus as a predator and the prey While experiments have tested these predictions, less explored are the consequences of the evolution of prey phenotypes that can persist in both vulnerable and invulnerable classes. ![]() When microevolutionary responses of prey populations occur at time scales comparable to population dynamics, adaptive responses in prey defense can, in theory, stabilize predator-prey dynamics and reduce top-down effects on prey abundance. Heterogeneity among prey in their susceptibility to predation is a potentially important stabilizer of predator-prey interactions, reducing the magnitude of population oscillations and enhancing total prey population abundance.
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