Trophic Interactions
- Ecology of plant defenses against herbivores: How do various abiotic
and biotic factors affect the relative importance of physical
vs. chemical, direct vs. indirect, and induced vs. constitutive plant
defenses against herbivores?
- Indirect effects of predators on plants: What is the relative
importance of density-mediated and trait-mediated indirect effects of
predators on plants?
- Factors influencing the diet compositions of organisms: How do
resource availability, resource attractiveness and preference, energy
and nutritional requirement, foraging behavior and hunting mode,
predation risk, and ontogeny jointly affect the diet compositions of
organisms?
- The strength of consumptive and non-consumptive predator effects:
How do various abiotic and biotic factors influence the strength of
consumptive vs. non-consumptive predator effects in different types of
ecosystems?
- Predator-predator interactions and multi-predator effects: How do
assemblages of predators with different foraging modes, habitat domains,
and dial activity patterns interact to affect prey populations?
- Intraguild predation, omnivory, and cannibalism: How do the levels
of intraguild predation, omnivory, and cannibalism vary among different
ecosystems and their impacts on food web dynamics?