A Keystone Effect For Parasites In Intraguild Predation?

Main Category: Biology / Biochemistry
Article Date: 10 Jul 2008 - 3:00 PDT


A major challenge for ecologists is to understand how different species coexist and the factors that promote their persistence or contribute to their decline. Recently ecologists have become interested in the role of parasites in these processes. Parasites are important components of ecological communities and can potentially have "keystone effects", altering the outcomes of interactions between other species. Here we use mathematical models to show that parasites can aid the persistence of a community interaction called intraguild predation (IGP). IGP occurs when competing species are also predators on each other and it is surprisingly common in ecological communities.

Royal Society journal Biology Letters

Biology Letters publishes short, innovative and cutting-edge research articles and opinion pieces accessible to scientists from across the biological sciences. The journal is characterised by stringent peer-review, rapid publication and broad dissemination of succinct high-quality research communications.

Biology Letters

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