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Dept of Theoretical Ecology
Institute of Entomology
Biology Centre ASCR
Branisovska 31
37005 Ceske Budejovice
Czech Republic
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phone: +420-387775367
fax: +420-385310354
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| Welcome |
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Department of Theoretical Ecology is one of 10 departments belonging to the
Institute of Entomology of the
Biology Centre of the
Academy of Sciences of the
Czech Republic.
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| How to reach us |
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The institute is located in the city of Ceske
Budejovice in southern Bohemia, some 150 km south of Prague and relatively close to the
borders with Austria. There are regular
train and bus connections
to and from Prague, and several trains a day to and from Austria (Linz, Gmünd). The main bus and train
stations in Ceske Budejovice are placed close together, with stops of most city buses in between. The
academic campus, including several other institutes and university builidings, are on the western
outskirts of the city. The campus takes about 20 minutes to reach by city trolley buses (No 3 direction
Maj and No 15 direction Vltava, both stop at Jana Opletala). If you travel by car from Prague,
you can either go via Pisek or via Tabor (both take about 2 hours, the first route is usually a little
faster).
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| News |
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Sex-selective predation and predator-prey dynamics
Given that many animals are sexually dimorphic and many predators hunt their prey based
on its size, conspicuousness or behaviour, sex-selective predation should be widespread.
In an article recently published in PloS ONE, David Boukal, Ludėk Berec and Vlastimil
Køivan from the Department of Theoretical Ecology highlight that this phenomenon is
surprisingly poorly covered in the research on population dynamics. They combine a modelling
approach with an extensive survey of known data to show that in most prey, male-biased predation
will have a stabilizing effect on the predator-prey dynamics (that is, such predation may lead
to a predator-prey equilibrium), while female-biased predation will usually be destabilizing
and may lead to extinction of the populations. This ecological viewpoint might provide an
alternative or supplementary explanation, other than sexual selection, as to why male-biased
predation prevails in nature.
Boukal, D. S., Berec, L., Krivan, V. 2008. Does sex-selective
predation stabilize or destabilize predator-prey dynamics? PloS ONE 3(7): e2687
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