Predator-Prey Relationships
- Consumers that kill and eat other animals are known as predators, and the animals that are eaten are known as prey
- In a stable community the predator and prey population sizes rise and fall in a predator-prey cycle that limits the population sizes of both predators and prey
- The graph below demonstrates some of the key patterns in predator-prey cycles:
- The number of predators increases when there is more prey available
- The number of prey decreases in response to an increase in the number of predators
- The number of predators decreases in response to a decrease in the number of prey
- The number of prey increases in response to a decrease in the number of predators
- The cycle repeats
- The relationship between the Canada lynx and the snowshoe hare is a famous example of the predator-prey interaction
- It is worth noting that relationships of this kind, with a single predator species and a single prey species, are unlikely to exist in this simple form in nature; there will be other predator and prey species, as well as additional factors that will affect the sizes of the respective populations
Predator-prey relationship graph
The predator and prey populations are closely linked in a predator-prey cycle