PREDATOR FUNCTIONAL RESPONSES: DISCRIMINATING BETWEEN HANDLING AND DIGESTING PREY

We present a handy mechanistic functional response model that realistically incorporates handling (i.e., attacking and eating) and digesting prey. We briefly review current functional response theory and thereby demonstrate that such a model has been lacking so far. In our model, we treat digestion as a background process that does not prevent further foraging activities (i.e., searching and handling). Instead, we let the hunger level determine the probability that the predator searches for new prey. Additionally, our model takes into account time wasted through unsuccessful attacks. Since a main assumption of our model is that the predator's hunger is in a steady state, we term it the steady state satiation…

• DF
  Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft