25 Examples of Predation - encyclopedia

Video: Predation- Brief Summary-Leaving Cert Biology

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Types of relationships
Role in the evolutionary process
Animal adaptations
Examples of predatory relationships
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The predation It is that biological relationship in which one species needs to hunt another to survive, since it represents its only possibility of feeding.

Predation has always played a central role in any evolutionary process. With rare exceptions, the individuals belonging to the predatory relationship (called predator and prey) are of different species, and in some cases one predator can be prey to another at the same time, while one animal can be prey to several predators.

In predation, unlike many of the other biological relationships in nature, there is only one victim and only one beneficiary: the predator needs the prey, while the prey may only need to protect itself from the danger that lurks. The fighting relationship includes visual or olfactory stimuli that the predator brings him closer to the prey, or a stalking that is carried out silently to avoid wasting energy.

Types of relationships

The so-called biological interactions or relationships can be of different types:

Parasitism: If an organism obtains its food from another and harms it by doing so, it is its parasite.
Competition: Two living beings can require the same resources for their growth. For example, two trees that are located close together may need to use nutrients from the soil, moisture, and sunlight. In these cases, they become competitors and hurt each other.
Commensalism: If an organism A obtains some benefit (service or resource) from another organism B, while organism B neither benefits nor harms itself, organism A is a commensal.
Mutualism: Both agencies benefit from the relationship.
Cooperation: Both species benefit from the relationship, but their existence does not depend on that relationship, as occurs in cases of mutualism.

Role in the evolutionary process

Predation has always been at the center of the evolutionary process. It is even part of the ecosystem, and the reductions in some species that this generates help to maintain a balanced nature: if one of them began to grow uncontrollably, it would possibly end up breaking the balance of the ecosystem.

Predators are in charge of keeping the ecosystem balanced, and they are clever at controlling the number of members of the other species: they know perfectly well that if this does not have the possibility of continuing to grow demographically, its main source of food will surely end up disappearing.

Animal adaptations

It is frequent that they occur physical adaptations tending to take advantage of this fighting relationship, being that the predator usually develops claws, sharp teeth, speed, agility, decides to carry out the hunting in a group and the surprise attack, while the prey defend themselves by running, hiding, even pretending their death and spewing substances with an unpleasant odor or taste.

Camouflage

One of the most striking circumstances of the predation process is that of the camouflage, where an organism is capable of modifying its color and shape, becoming similar to the landscape, becoming more difficult for recognition by the predator in the case of a defensive attitude, or by the prey if the the change is on the part of the predator.

Animals, then, acquire a resembling inanimate objects like stones, trunks, leaves and branches, in such a way that they are almost impossible to appreciate unless a movement makes them especially striking: this behavior was replicated by humans for the jungle activities of hunting and war.