Behavior-mediated population dynamics 
  
Vlastimil Krivan 
Department of Theoretical Biology 
Institute of Entomology CAS
Branisovska 31, CZ-37005 Ceske Budejovice 
Czech Republic 
krivan@entu.cas.cz 
  http://www.entu.cas.cz/krivan/   


In theoretical ecology there are two separate but complementary avenues of research: population ecology and evolutionary ecology. Population ecology has attempted to understand dynamics by studying, e.g., the direct lethal effects that predators inflict on their prey and how these lethal effects translate into changing numbers of prey over time. Evolutionary ecology, on the other hand has explored how the mere presence of predators in a community can force prey to make behavioral choices between vital activities such as feeding and seeking refuges from predation etc. Both subdisciplines have developed and use their own methodological approaches such as Evolutionary Stable Strategies, Dynamic State Models, Theory of Dynamical Systems etc. However, models of population dynamics rarely integrate explicitly the results of behavioral ecology models because it is often assumed that behavioral affects attenuate on the time scale of population dynamics. Evolutionary models, on the other side, often do not consider population dynamics, assuming that population densities are at their respective equilibria. This session aims to build bridges between these independent research efforts in order to develop a more biologically complete models. Talks should present the-state-of-the-art in modeling combined behavioral and population dynamics. They should have both components, i.e., behavior and population dynamics and they should combine both to produce new emergent effects. Methodological talks are especially welcome.


List of presentations