EFFECTS OF HUNTING AND ESCAPING BEHAVIOR ON AN ECOSYSTEM CONSISTING OF ONE-PREDATOR AND TWO-PREY SPECIES

In this study, we constructed a simple ecosystem consisting of one-predator-two-prey escape preferred strategy (EPS)- and hunting preferred strategy (HPS)-prey) - food for prey relationship to understand how the individual's strategic behavior, hunting and escaping affects the ecosystem. In the model, when a prey encounters its predator and the food at the same time, either hunting or escaping should be taken as priority. Hunting priority is referred to as a HPS, while escape priority is referred to as an EPS. These strategies are associated with some degree of willingness to either hunt (H) or escape (E). In this model, two prey species were considered. One species (HPS-prey) takes HPS and the other rabbit species (EPS-prey) takes EPS. Predators take only HPS. Simulation results showed that the density of EPS-prey was obviously higher than that of HPS-prey in the appropriate values of 0.2 <= E <= 0.8 and 0.2 <= H <= 0.8 in the stable state. This means that when a prey individual has appropriate willingness for both hunting and escape, EPS is more beneficial for the survival than HPS. In addition, we briefly discussed the limitation of our model and the possible future improvements.