New paper on how habitat affects the dynamics of predator-prey events and its applications to restoration

In January, the BTN team together with colleagues at NORCE and other partnering institutes in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Canada published a review article on how habitat influences the dynamics between a predator and its prey. In the paper we discuss the importance of habitat complexity providing refuge, to facilitate phenotypic variation, on energetic costs of predation, and to allow for apparent competition.

Habitat plays a crucial role in shaping ecosystems. The amount and quality of habitat affect how ecosystems function and how species interact. One important way habitat influences ecosystems is by mediating predator-prey relationships - the interactions between animals that hunt and those they hunt.

In this review paper, we explore how habitat impacts these predator-prey dynamics and identified four main ways it plays a role:

1. Providing Refuge: Habitat can give prey places to hide and protect themselves from predators.

2. Shaping Traits: Habitat influences how prey adapt physically to their environment for survival.

3. Adding Challenges: Habitat creates obstacles that make hunting harder or easier for predators.

4. Facilitating Competition: Habitat can create indirect competition among prey, affecting the balance in the ecosystem.

Conceptual figure from the paper on a more complex habitat

When ecosystems and landscapes are modified and their complexity may be reduced, the changes may mediate predation. We discuss how habitat and predation dynamics should be taken into consideration when restoration efforts are discussed and whether planned restoration measurements will negatively or positively affect the interactions among the species in the given area.

Conceptual figure from the paper on a less complex habitat

You can read the paper by clicking here