Stronger inducible defences enhance persistence of intraguild prey.
1. Intraguild predation is widespread in nature despite its potentially destabilizing effect on food web dynamics. 2. Anti-predator inducible defences affect both birth and death rates of populations and have the potential to substantially modify food web dynamics and possibly increase persistence of intraguild prey. 3. In a chemostat experiment, we investigated the long-term effects of inducible defences on the dynamics of aquatic microbial food webs consisting of an intraguild predator, intraguild prey, and a basal resource. We controlled environmental conditions and selected strains of intraguild prey that varied in the strength of expressed inducible defences. 4. We found that intraguild prey with a stronger tendency to induce an anti-predator morphology persist for significantly longer periods of time. In addition, model selection analysis implied that flexibility in defensive phenotype (inducibility itself) is most likely the factor responsible for the enhanced persistence. 5. As patterns at the community level often emerge as a result of the life-history traits of individuals, we propose that inducible defences increase the persistence of populations and may contribute to the widespread occurrence of theoretically unstable intraguild predation systems in nature.
Kratina
Pavel
P
Department of Biology, University of Victoria, PO Box 3020, Victoria, British Columbia V8W 3N5, Canada. kratina@zoology.ubc.ca
Hammill
Edd
E
Anholt
Bradley R
BR
D000818:Animals; D016812:Euplotes / Q000502:physiology*; D053476:Extinction, Biological; D020387:Food Chain; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011235:Predatory Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014419:Turbellaria / Q000502:physiology*