Coevolution
Krohne’s work talks about coevolution, which is the evolution of two or more species together due to them exerting pressures on one another. This happens in exploitative interactions and involves systems like predation, parasitism, and mutualism.
Coevolution in predation results in the evolutionary arms race. The arms race is characterized by the defense and counter defense evolutions between the two species. However, the rate of development is not equal; therefore, the one with superior adaptions will be at an advantage.
Predators are faced with challenges when it comes to feeding. The challenges are; prey detection; hunting approach; and capturing and subduing.
In detecting the prey, they utilize their vision, sound, electric fields, and thermal information. In capturing and subduing, they apply the optimal foraging theory, whereas the marginal value theorem helps during the hunting strategy.
The optimal foraging theory declares that predators feeding habit is dependent on the energy return. The theory classifies predators into two: generalists and specialists. The former search for long, while the other handling time is lengthy.
According to the marginal value theorem, predators staying time in a patch is long when the patch is productive.
Prey adopt various mechanisms to avoid the predator. They include: color matching, countershading, herd behavior, toxin production, predator swamping, among others.
On the other hand, plant adaptations to consumption by herbivore consist of tolerance and deterrence. In the latter, they use chemical and/or structural defenses. While in the former, they compensate faster the lost tissues.
Parasite adaptions in hosts include an increase in: virulence, generalization, and infection. For instance, the trematode parasite has increased the rate of infection by using two intermediate hosts – snail and frog – before arriving in its definitive host (bird)
Work Cited
Krohne, David T. Ecology: Evolution, application, integration. Oxford University Press, 2018.