Publications of Michael L. Rosenzweig

Predation dynamics

Robert H.MacArthur (my Ph.D. adviser) and I invented and exploited a robust theoretical approach to the population interactions of predators and their victims. We introduced the use of isocline analysis and linearized stability analysis to ecology. We showed the dynamic importance of prey refuges to the continued existence of predation systems. And we discovered likelihood of positive feedback in predation. We showed that such positive feedback would be a major source of population oscillation and instability.

Recently, using trained owls and gerbils, Zvika Abramsky and I experimentally confirmed the existence of predatory positive feedback in nature. (Others had shown it in the lab.)

Other contributions examine the issue of coevolution between predators and victims, as each is molded by natural selection to counter the advances made by the other. These papers predicted that predators and victims would achieve long term parity: neither would outrun the other in their evolutionary race. The parity might occur at a rate of zero owing to evolutionary constraints and to trade-offs of predation functions with other ecological or physiological functions. Or it might be at some positive rate of evolution (this case is called 'rat race', 'arms race' or the 'Red Queen hypothesis').

1998 Articles on Predation in Encyclopedia of Ecology and Environmental Management (P. Calow, Ed.) Blackwell Scientific Publications Ltd., Oxford, England.

1) Paradox of enrichment (p. 523)

2) Predator-prey interactions (p. 584)

3) Predator satiation, swamping (p. 585)

4) Models of predator-prey interaction (p. 451-3)

5) Prudent predator concept (p. 594)

1997 MLR, Z. Abramsky & A. Subach: Safety in numbers; sophisticated vigilance by Allenby's gerbil. Pr. Nat. Acad. Sci. (USA) 94:5713-5715.

Field experiments test and confirm the existence of dynamic mutualism as a consequence of the interaction between predator & prey.

1997 Abramsky,Z., MLR, & A. Subach: Gerbils under threat of owl predation: isoclines and isodars. Oikos 78:81-90.

Field experiments with trained barn owls measure the slope of a prey isocline in the field. First time for a vertebrate.

1996 And now for something completely different: Genetic games and Red Queens. Evolutionary Ecology 10:327

1991 MLR & R. McCord. Incumbent replacement: evidence for long-term evolutionary progress. Paleobiology 17:202-213.

1990 Schwinning, S. & MLR. Periodic oscillations in an ideal-free predator-prey distribution. Oikos 59:85-91.

1987 MLR, Joel S. Brown & T.L. Vincent. Red Queens and ESS: the coevolution of evolutionary rates. Evolutionary Ecology 1:59-96.

1978 MLR & W.M.Schaffer. Homage to the Red Queen II. Coevolutionary response to enrichment of exploitation ecosystems. Theor. Pop. Biol. 9:158-163.

1978 W.M. Schaffer & MLR. Homage to the Red Queen I. Coevolution of predators and their victims. Theor. Pop. Biol. 9:135-157.

1977 Aspects of biological exploitation. Quart. Rev. Biol. 52:371-380, reprinted from D. Wollkind (ed.), Proc. Wash. State Univ. Conf., Biomath. and Biostatistics, Pullman, WA. Pp. 251-288.

1973 Evolution of the predator isocline. Evolution 27:89-94.

1972 Comment on May & Gilpin, Science 177:904

1972 Stability of enriched aquatic ecosystems. Science 175:564-5.

1971 Paradox of enrichment: destabilization of exploitation ecosystems in ecological time. Science 171:385-7. 1969 Why the prey curve has a hump. Amer. Natur. 103:81-87.

1963 MLR & R.H. MacArthur. Graphical representation and stability conditions of predator-prey interactions. Amer. Natur. 97:209-223. Reprinted 1967 by Bobbs-Merrill.