BIOLOGIYA MORYA, 2023, Vol. 49, No. 6, pp. 386-395 |
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Dynamics of Zooplankton Consumption by the Three-speed Stickleleback Gasterosteus aculeatus (Linnaeus, 1758) at Different Densities of the Predator Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), Biological Faculty, Moscow 119991, Russia E-mail: An experiment was set up to estimate the rate of zooplankton consumption by the three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus (Linnaeus, 1758) at different predator densities. A differential equation describes the dynamics of zooplankton abundance depending on duration of predator feeding. The derived function accurately characterizes the rate of zooplankton consumption by stickleback in the experiment, demonstrating a good agreement between the theoretical prerequisites and the experimental results. The relationship between changing a number of prey during predation, its mortality and consumption rate was revealed. The hypothesis of consumption rate proportional to the number of predators was tested. A comparative analysis of ingestion rate as a function of time and a function of prey density was performed. Key words: model, experiment, feeding patch, consumption, predator, resource, three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus. |
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