Foraging arena theory

There is a critical need for quantitative models that can help evaluate trade-off decisions related to the impacts of harvesting and protection of aquatic ecosystems within an ecosystem context. Ecosystem models used to evaluate such trade-offs need to have the capability of capturing the dynamic stability that can arise when predator-prey interactions are restricted to spatial and temporal arenas. Foraging arenas appear common in aquatic systems and are created by a wide range of mechanisms, ranging from restrictions of predator distributions in response to predation risk caused by their own predators, to risk-sensitive foraging behaviour by their prey. Foraging arenas partition the prey in each predator-prey interaction in a food web into vulnerable and invulnerable states, with exchange between these states potentially limiting overall trophic flow. Inclusion of vulnerability exchange processes in models for recruitment processes and food web responses to disturbances like harvesting leads to very different predictions about dynamic stability, trophic cascades and maintenance of ecological diversity than do models based on large-scale mass action (random mixing) interactions between prey and predators. Although a number of methods to estimate these critical exchange rates are presented, none are considered fully satisfactory. The most important challenge for the practical application of models that incorporate foraging arena theory today is not only developing new or improved methods for measuring exchange rates but also evaluating how such rates vary in responses to major fishery-induced changes in abundances of predators.