How Do Predators Affect Biotic Interactions?

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The second ecological consequence pollution has in freshwater ecosystems is affecting its biotic interactions. Salice and Kimberly (2012) wanted to determine whether high concentrations of a common insecticide, malathion, would alter predator avoidance behaviors in Physa pomilia, a freshwater gastropod. Predator-prey interactions are vitally important in the function and structure of communities. Predators can impact prey through consumptive affects, affecting the abundance and richness, and via non-consumptive-where the threat of predation elicit changes in the way prey behave, their morpohology, life history and physiology (Salice and Kimberly 2012). The predator in this case study is the crayfish where Physa pomilia gastropod is its common prey. After forty eight hour treatments of malathion, P. pomilia …show more content…
With higher concentrations of insecticide, a linear correlation occurred in which more snails fell prey to the predator. Another side effect observed was a change in the gastropod’s shell morphology (Salice and Kimberly 2012). This given evidence portrays how predator induced defenses result from alterations in behavioral and morphological phenotype. Therefore it stands to reason that the responses may be more sensitive to chemical stressors compared to other life cycle traits such as growth, reproduction and survival (Salice and Kimberly 2012). The relationship between the European Bitterling, Rhodeus sericeus, and its freshwater mussel host, Anodonta anatina, is another example of biotic interactions (Mills and Reynolds 2003). Bitterling depends on mussels to reproduce. A female would lay her eggs into the water tubes within the gills of a mussel while the male will releases sperm over the inhalant siphon afterwards for fertilization to take place. The

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