New research on predator-prey relationships

One of the reasons prey species migrate is to avoid predators over long time scales, this ultimately has a powerful effect on the balance between predator and prey in a given ecosystem. This is especially true if the migration is seasonal and the predator does not have the ability to migrate.

New work published in International journal of dynamical systems and differential equations, notes how modeling predator-prey interactions divided into hypothetical restricted and non-restricted areas – the restricted area is the area to which the prey migrates and is inaccessible to predators – can improve our understanding of the biological phenomenon of migration. Furthermore, the creation of artificial reservoirs could be useful in reducing the damaging effects of climate change, exploitation, random collection, poaching and pollution on prey species without having any significant negative impact on predators. After all, both prey and predator deserve the chance to be part of a sustainable and biodiverse environment.

“Several factors should be taken into consideration when creating protected areas for a particular species, such as the number of individual species to be protected, the carrying capacity of the restricted area, the dynamics of the ecosystem that supports these species and many more. , “write Jyotirmoy Roy and Shariful Alam of the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology in Howrah. The team’s modeling shows how migration in and out of the restricted zone has a powerful effect on the dynamics of the system, in other words on the changing predator-prey balance. However, the movement of prey from the restricted to the non-restricted zone has the greatest impact, and if that movement falls below a certain threshold, the entire system becomes unstable. Conversely, if there is too great a migration back and forth, the concept of creating a restricted zone becomes meaningless as prey is essentially perpetually under the control of predators.

The next step in modeling such systems will take into account seasonality to create a more realistic system that can be tested more rigorously.