Functional response

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Functional response, a term used in biology and ecology with regards to predator-prey interactions, is the relationship between the density of prey in a certain area and the average number of prey consumed by each predator in that area. The concept was introduced by work on small mammals by C.S. Holling, a Canadian ecologist that studied how predator per capita consumption of prey changed with prey density[1].

Functional response is distinct from numerical response, which measures how the number of predators in an area vary with the density of prey.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Holling, C. S. (1959). The components of predation as revealed by a study of small mammal predation of the European Pine Sawfly. Canadian Entomologist 91, 293-320
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