Functional Response Changes with Size in Xenopus

Do you remember Corey Thorp?

To jog your memories, here are a few pics of Corey doing his MSc research in the MeaseyLab between 2015 and 2016.

 

Corey received his MSc in March 2017, but the work didn’t stop there. Together with James Vonesh and Mhairi Alexander, we took Corey’s MSc work to publication in PeerJ.

Published today, Corey’s work shows that functional response type changes as a predator grows, despite the predator and prey being the same species. This has significance as functional response is regularly used as a static figure for invasive predators. The finding suggests that invasions may change in relation to predator prey dynamics as a cohort ages, or depending on which sized animals are dominant in each system. This is very true for African clawed frogs, Xenopus laevis, as they tend to have a single dominant cohort in a dam or pond at any one time.

Thorp CJ, Alexander ME, Vonesh JR, Measey J. (2018) Size-dependent functional response of Xenopus laevis feeding on mosquito larvae. PeerJ 6:e5813 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5813