Title:  Modelling the fear effect in predator-prey interactions with adaptive avoidance of predators

 

Speaker: Dr. Xiaoying Wang, University of Ottawa, Canada

 

Abstract: Recent field experiments on vertebrates showed that mere presence of a predator would cause a dramatic change of prey demography. Fear of predators increases the survival probability of prey but leads to a cost of prey reproduction. Based on the experimental findings, we propose a predator-prey model with the cost of fear and adaptive avoidance of predators. Mathematical analyses show that the fear effect can interplay with maturation delay between juvenile prey and adult prey in determining the long term population dynamics. A positive equilibrium may lose stability with an intermediate value of delay and regain stability if the delay is large. Numerical simulations show that both strong adaptation of adult prey and the large cost of fear have destabilizing effect while large population of predators has a stabilizing effect on the predator-prey interactions. Numerical simulations also imply that adult prey demonstrate stronger anti-predator behaviours if the population of predators is larger and show weaker anti-predator behaviours if the cost of fear is larger.