Scrounging by foragers can resolve the paradox of enrichment

Abstract

Theoretical models of predator-prey system predict that sufficient enrichment of prey can generate large amplitude limit cycles, paradoxically causing a high risk of extinction (the paradox of enrichment). While real ecological communities contain many gregarious species whose foraging behaviour should be influenced by socially transmitted information, few theoretical studies have examined the possibility that social foraging might be a resolution of the paradox. I considered a predator population in which individuals play the producer-scrounger foraging game both in a one-prey-one-predator system and a two-prey-one-predator system. I analysed the stability of a coexisting equilibrium point in the former one-prey system and that of non-equilibrium dynamics of the latter two-prey system. The result showed that social foraging can stabilise both systems and thereby resolves the paradox of enrichment when scrounging behaviour is prevalent in predators. This suggests a previously neglected mechanism underlying a powerful effect of group-living animals on sustainability of ecological communities.