Talk:Anti-predator adaptation

Anti-predator adaptation has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: July 3, 2015. (Reviewed version).

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Methods of flight include rollerblading?[edit]

I notice that rollerblading is listed among the ways that prey may escape a predator. Unless we're including homo sapiens here, I'm dubious. 68.156.95.34 (talk) 07:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. It was only vandalism - you can feel free to revert such things immediately. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:07, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I knew that if I did, it would turn out that there was some obscure cephalopod that could form its tentacles into rollerblades or something. :) 68.156.95.34 (talk) 08:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested additions - symbiosis and borrowed substances/cells from other organisms[edit]

I'd like to add a section on symbiotic/cross-species defenses, such as the acacia tree's coopting of ants as defenses, or mixed-animal herds of ungulates in Africa (or mixed-species flocks of birds all over the place). (I believe there are bait fish that mixed-school but I haven't read about their behavior in probably decades.) [Yes, I know that trees aren't animals, but the principles are the same. If you prefer, substitute aphids for acacias--the cases are surprisingly similar.]

Also I'd like to have a separate section on animals that use stolen chemicals or cells to defend themselves, like slugs using jellyfish cnidocytes to have second-hand stings, or monarch butterflies using milkweed alkaloids to taste bad.

Any objections? IAmNitpicking (talk) 19:17, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Should be all right, as long as you're careful to choose and cite your sources properly. The article already mentions chemicals acquired from host plants. What I don't want to happen this time round is to have the whole structure rejiggled randomly ... been there. It would be worth thinking out the overlaps between symbiosis, co-evolution, and the current article, and then updating all of them, with suitable links and the minimum of duplication. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:04, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why is seed-eating "predation" but eating whole plants not?[edit]

The estimable Chiswick Chap insists that only the consumption of seeds is "predation" for the purposes of this article. I don't see it. Is it just linguistic, that some source uses that word? IAmNitpicking (talk) 16:46, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not me, the world community of ecologists. A seed (or an egg) is a whole organism at one stage in its life-cycle. Eating it is killing an organism for food, which is the definition of predation, and seed predation is a well-defined concept in ecology. There are reliable sources at predation on the topic, and many others on Google Scholar. Eating a part of a plant, as when a cow eats grass, is herbivory but not predation. It is very difficult for most herbivores to eat a whole plant; for instance, a grass clone may spread over a whole field, and includes the roots which are hard to reach. Other examples could of course be given, but that's not the issue here.Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:39, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for clarifying. I continue to disagree, but an encyclopedia is not the place to argue with the field's standard usage. IAmNitpicking (talk) 14:25, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. It's no part of my duty to defend the standard usage, but it's actually clear and logical in this case. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:52, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]