Coblentz Kyle E, Novak Mark, DeLong John P
School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA.
Department of Integrative Biology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
Ecol Lett. 2025 May;28(5):e70126. doi: 10.1111/ele.70126.
Many drivers of ecological systems exhibit regular scaling relationships, yet the mechanisms explaining these relationships are often unknown. Trophic interaction strengths are no exception, exhibiting scaling relationships with predator and prey traits that lack evolutionary explanations. We propose two rules to explain the scaling of trophic interaction strengths through the relationship between a predator's feeding rate and its prey's density-the so-called predator functional response. First, functional responses allow predators to meet their energetic demands when prey are rare. Second, functional responses approach their maxima near the highest prey densities predators experience. We show that equations derived from these rules predict functional response parameters across over 2100 functional response experiments and make additional predictions such as their allometric scaling. The two rules thereby offer a potential ultimate explanation for the determinants of trophic interaction strengths, revealing ecologically realised constraints to the complex, adaptive nature of functional response evolution.
许多生态系统的驱动因素呈现出规律的标度关系，然而解释这些关系的机制往往不明。营养相互作用强度也不例外，它与缺乏进化解释的捕食者和猎物特征呈现标度关系。我们提出两条规则，通过捕食者的摄食率与其猎物密度之间的关系（即所谓的捕食者功能反应）来解释营养相互作用强度的标度。第一，当猎物稀少时，功能反应使捕食者能够满足其能量需求。第二，功能反应在捕食者所经历的最高猎物密度附近接近其最大值。我们表明，从这些规则推导出来的方程预测了超过2100个功能反应实验中的功能反应参数，并做出了诸如它们的异速生长标度等额外预测。因此，这两条规则为营养相互作用强度的决定因素提供了一个潜在的终极解释，揭示了功能反应进化的复杂适应性本质在生态上实现的限制。
