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3 days ago · predation, in animal behaviour, the pursuit, capture, and killing of animals for food. Predatory animals may be solitary hunters, like the leopard, or they may be group hunters, like wolves. The senses of predators are adapted in a variety of ways to facilitate hunting behaviour.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the host) and parasitoidism (which always does, eventually).
- Definition
- Examples of Predation
- Trophic Levels
Predation refers to a flow of energy between two organisms, predator and prey. In this interaction, the prey loses energy, and the predator gains energy. The word ‘predation’ derives from the Latin word praedari, meaning ‘to plunder’.Predation includes carnivory, as well as interactions like grazing, parasitism, and symbiotic mutualism. The process...
Carnivorous Predation
Wolves are large canines that primarily hunt large herbivores such as deer, elk, and sheep. They are particularly well-adapted hunters, with strong jaws, heightened senses, and powerful bodies, they can identify and chase prey at high speeds. Carnivorous predation can also be an interaction between two groups of organisms. While many carnivores hunt prey that are much smaller than themselves, some cooperate with other individuals of their species to bring down larger prey. For example, lions...
Herbivorous Predation
Grazing is a form of herbivory where the plant regenerates the parts that were eaten by the herbivore. Herbivores are adapted to their mode of feeding. For example, elephants have large flat teeth to grind tough plant material. They also contain microorganisms in their gut to digest plant-based carbohydrates. Plants have been known to develop defenses against grazing. When giraffes feed on acacia trees, the trees release a toxic substance into their leaves that forces the giraffes to move awa...
Parasitic Predation
The parasite that causes malaria, Plasmodium, infects a wide variety of animal hosts, including reptiles, birds, and mammals. The infection and causes cyclical rounds of high fever and chills, and can even kill the host. Tapeworms are common human parasites that can cause malnutrition, especially in young children. Filarial worms are parasites that cause skin, eye,and lymphatic diseases. Parasitism is also seen in the plant kingdom. Strangler figs are common tropical plants that behave like p...
Trophic levels refer to the hierarchical stages in a food chain, starting from autotrophs and moving towards primary, secondary, and tertiary consumers. An organism that is a predator at one trophic level can become the prey at a higher trophic level. For example, krill are predators of phytoplankton but are also the prey of higher predators, pengu...
The meaning of PREDATION is the killing by one living organism of another for food : a mode of life in which food is primarily obtained by the killing and consuming of animals. How to use predation in a sentence.
In predation, one organism kills and consumes another. Predation provides energy to prolong the life and promote the reproduction of the organism that does the killing, the predator, to...
Predation is an interaction in which one organism, the predator, eats all or part of the body of another organism, the prey. Herbivory is a form of predation in which the prey organism is a plant. Predator and prey populations affect each other's dynamics.
- DictionaryPre·da·tion/prəˈdāSH(ə)n/
noun
- 1. the preying of one animal on others: "an effective defense against predation"
- 2. the action of attacking or plundering: "the old story of male predation and female vulnerability"
How do predation and resource availability drive changes in natural populations?
