Nonadditive impacts of temperature and basal resource availability on predator-prey interactions and phenotypes.

Predicting the impacts of climate change on communities requires understanding how temperature affects predator-prey interactions under different biotic conditions. In cases of size-specific predation, environmental influences on the growth rate of one or both species can determine predation rates. For example, warming increases top-down control of food webs, although this depends on resource availability for prey, as increased resources may allow prey to reach a size refuge.

Inducible offences affect predator-prey interactions and life-history plasticity in both predators and prey.

Phenotypic plasticity can have strong impacts on predator-prey interactions. Although much work has examined the effects of inducible defences, less understood is how inducible offences in predators affect predator-prey interactions and predator and prey phenotypes. Here, we examine the impacts of an inducible offence on the interactions and life histories of a cohort of predatory Hynobius retardatus salamander larvae and their prey, Rana pirica tadpoles.

Prey subsidy or predator cue? Direct and indirect effects of caged predators on aquatic consumers and resources.

The non-consumptive effects of predators on prey can affect prey phenotypes, potentially having important consequences for communities due to trait-mediated indirect interactions. Predicting non-consumptive effects and their impacts on communities can be difficult because predators can affect resources directly through nutrient cycling and indirectly by altering prey resource use, which can lead to complex interactions among resources and consumers. In this study we examined the effects of caged dragonfly predators on aquatic resources in the presence and absence of two focal herbivores, the tadpoles of Neotropical tree frogs Agalychnis callidryas and Dendropsophus ebraccatus.