Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Long-term predator–prey cycles finally achieved in the lab

A combination of laboratory experiments and mathematical and statistical analysis provides an affirmative answer to a decades-old question — can a predator and its prey coexist indefinitely?
  1. Alan Hastings

    1. Alan Hastings is in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, Davis, California 95616, USA, and at the Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

A key question in ecology is what allows species to persist over time — particularly when there are pairs of species in which one is an exploiter and the other its victim. A long-standing theory attempts to answer this question by explaining how relative numbers of predators and their prey can cycle continuously1. First, prey numbers would increase, giving the predator more food. The subsequent increase in predators would lead to a decline in prey. Predator numbers would then decline owing to a lack of food, restarting the cycle. However, it has proved unexpectedly challenging to demonstrate this type of persistent predator–prey cycle in simple controlled systems in the laboratory. Writing in Nature, Blasius et al.2 report just such a demonstration, succeeding where almost 90 years of experimental work has failed.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 577, 172-173 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03603-3

References

  1. Kendall, B. E. et al. Ecology 80, 1789–1805 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Blasius, B., Rudolf, L., Weithoff, G., Gaedke, U. & Fussmann, G. F. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1857-0 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Elton, C. & Nicholson, M. J. Anim. Ecol. 11, 215–244 (1942).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Gause, G. F. The Struggle for Existence (Williams & Wilkins, 1934).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Luckinbill, L. Ecology 55, 1142–1147 (1974).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Hanski, I. Metapopulation Ecology (Oxford Univ. Press, 1999).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Cazelles, B. et al. Oecologia 156, 287–304 (2008).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Fussmann, G. F., Ellner, S. P., Shertzer, K. W. & Hairston, N. G. Science 290, 1358–1360 (2000).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Hastings, A. et al. Science 361, eaat6412 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Cushing, J. & Desharnais, C. J. Anim. Ecol. 67, 298–306 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links