Maternal effects on offspring consumption can stabilise fluctuating predator-prey systems

Jennifer Garbutt, Thomas Little, Andy Hoyle

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Maternal effects, where the conditions experienced by mothers affect the phenotype of their offspring, are widespread in nature, and have the potential to influence population dynamics. However they are very rarely included in models of population dynamics. Here, we investigate a recently discovered maternal effect, where maternal food availability affects the feeding rate of offspring so that well-fed mothers produce fast-feeding offspring. To understand how this maternal effect influences population dynamics we explore novel predator-prey models where the consumption rate of predators is modified by changes in maternal prey availability. We address the “paradox of enrichment”, a theoretical prediction that nutrient enrichment destabilises populations leading to cycling behaviour and an increased risk of extinction, which has proven difficult to confirm in the wild. Our models show that enriched populations can be stabilised by maternal effects on feeding rate, thus presenting an intriguing potential explanation for the general absence of “paradox of enrichment” behaviour in natural populations. This stabilising influence should also reduce a population’s risk of extinction and vulnerability to harvesting.
Original languageEnglish
Article number20152173
JournalProceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences
Volume282
Issue number1820
Early online date2 Dec 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Dec 2015

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • Consumer resource
  • Consumption rate
  • Dynamics
  • Maternal effect
  • Mathematical model
  • Predator–prey

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