Hunting strategyHunting strategy or hunting method is any specific techniques or tactics that are used to target, pursue, and hunt an animal. The term mostly applies to humans catching and killing wild animals, but can also be used in ethology and nature documentaries to describe predation strategies adopted by carnivores. The hunting strategy that a hunter uses depends mainly on the type of terrain, as well as game being hunted.
Seed predationSeed predation, often also called granivory, is a type of plant-animal interaction in which animals feed mainly on the seeds of plants. Granivores are found across many families of vertebrates, especially mammals and birds, as well as in many groups of insects. Seed predation is commonly divided into pre-dispersal and post-dispersal predation, which affect the fitness of the parental plant and the dispersed offspring (the seed), respectively.
CarnivoreA carnivore, or meat-eater (Latin, caro, genitive carnis, meaning meat or flesh and vorare meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose nutrition and energy requirements are met by consumption of animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other soft tissues) as food, whether through predation or scavenging.
Biological interactionIn ecology, a biological interaction is the effect that a pair of organisms living together in a community have on each other. They can be either of the same species (intraspecific interactions), or of different species (interspecific interactions). These effects may be short-term or long-term; both often strongly influence the adaptation and evolution of the species involved.
ParasitismType of interaction between speciesA fish parasite, the isopod Cymothoa exigua, replacing the tongue of a LithognathusParasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life.
ParasitoidA parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionary strategies within parasitism, distinguished by the fatal prognosis for the host, which makes the strategy close to predation.
ScavengerScavengers are animals that feed on dead and decaying organic matter. Often the term is used to describe the consumption of carrion, the bodies of animals that have died from causes other than predation or the bodies of animals that have been killed by other predators. However, the term is also used to describe animals that feed on rotting plant matter or refuse.
List of feeding behavioursFeeding is the process by which organisms, typically animals, obtain food. Terminology often uses either the suffixes -vore, -vory, or -vorous from Latin vorare, meaning "to devour", or -phage, -phagy, or -phagous from Greek φαγεῖν (phagein), meaning "to eat". Evolutionary historyThe evolution of feeding is varied with some feeding strategies evolving several times in independent lineages.
Host (biology)In biology and medicine, a host is a larger organism that harbours a smaller organism; whether a parasitic, a mutualistic, or a commensalistguest (symbiont). The guest is typically provided with nourishment and shelter. Examples include animals playing host to parasitic worms (e.g. nematodes), cells harbouring pathogenic (disease-causing) viruses, or a bean plant hosting mutualistic (helpful) nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
FrugivoreA frugivore ( ) is an animal that thrives mostly on fruits. Approximately 20% of mammalian herbivores eat fruit. Frugivores are highly dependent on the abundance and nutritional composition of fruits. Frugivores can benefit or hinder fruit-producing plants by either dispersing or destroying their seeds through digestion. When both the fruit-producing plant and the frugivore benefit by fruit-eating behavior the interaction is a form of mutualism.
HerbivoreA herbivore is an animal anatomically or physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet. These more broadly also encompass animals that eat non-vascularautotrophs such as mosses, algae and lichens, but do not include those feeding on decomposedplant matters (i.e. detritivores) or macrofungi (i.e. fungivores).*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.