In particular, we explore the impact of the amount of dynamics (exploitative competition) allowed in the predator, scavenger, and prey populations as well as the direction and magnitude of interference competition between predators and scavengers. Our modeling suggests that the presence of scavengers can both increase and decrease predator kill rates and overall predation in model food webs and the impact varies (in magnitude and direction) with context. We develop a dynamic model that includes two facultative scavenger species, which we refer to as the predator or scavenger species according to their natural scavenging propensity, as well as live prey, and a carrion pool to show ramifications of scavenging for predation in simple food webs. Still, few food web models include scavenging.

These organisms get their nourishment from dead organic material, such as decaying plant leaves or dead fish that sink to the bottom of a pond.Scavenging can have important consequences for food web dynamics, for example, it may support additional consumer species and affect predation on live prey. In addition to consumers and the producers that support them, ecosystems have decomposers. When a top predator dies, it is consumed by scavengers or decomposers. It is considered a “top predator” because no other animals native to the ecosystem hunt or eat it. Its diet includes predatory fish that eat algae-eating fish, as well as snakes that feed on grass-eating marsh rabbits. A bald eagle is an example of a tertiary consumer you might see near the coastal mangrove islands of the Everglades. Ecosystems can also have tertiary consumers, carnivores that eat other carnivores. They are called omnivores, from the Latin words that mean “eats everything.” A raccoon is an example of an omnivore it eats plant matter such as berries and acorns, but it also catches crayfish, frogs, fish, and other small animals. Some secondary consumers eat both plants and animals. For example, small arachnids called ticks attach themselves to other animals and feed on their blood, but ticks are not considered predators. Some consumers feed on live animals but do not kill them. Some, known as scavengers, feed on animals that are already dead. Most carnivores, called predators, hunt and kill other animals, but not all carnivores are predators. Secondary consumers are mostly carnivores, from the Latin words meaning “meat eater.” In the Everglades, egrets and alligators are carnivores. Next are the secondary consumers, which eat primary consumers. Some other examples of primary consumers are white-tailed deer that forage on prairie grasses, and zooplankton that eat microscopic algae in the water. For example, a grasshopper living in the Everglades is a primary consumer. They eat primary producers-plants or algae-and nothing else. Primary consumers make up the second trophic level. Scientists distinguish between several kinds of consumers. To get energy, they eat plants or other animals, while some eat both. Unlike producers, they cannot make their own food. Consumers constitute the upper trophic levels. Through a process called photosynthesis, producers capture energy from the sun and use it to create simple organic molecules, which they use for food. Primary producers-plants, algae, and bacteria-make up the base of the pyramid, the first trophic level. These interactions can be represented by what scientists call a trophic pyramid. Within every ecosystem, organisms interact to move energy around in predictable ways. These animals are quite different from one another and live in different ways, but they have something in common: In this ecosystem, they are all consumers. A raccoon (Procyon lotor) digs in the mud for freshwater mussels. A grasshopper ( Brachystola magna) chews on an aster leaf. A great egret (Ardea alba) stalks fish in the shallows.

On a sawgrass prairie in the Florida Everglades, an alligator ( Alligator mississippiensis) lazes on the bank of a slow-moving water channel.

Scavengers definition biology