UAlberta Math Biology Seminar: Shohel Ahmed

Foraging behavior is highly flexible, with individuals adjusting feeding strategies in response to food availability, predation risk, and physiological state. This study develops mechanistic frameworks to explore how such behavioral flexibility influences population dynamics and ecosystem functioning. We first examine consumer-resource systems in which feeding intensity responds to resource density and population pressure, generating feedback between foraging effort and resource depletion. We then incorporate continuous variation in consumer behavioral phenotypes, recognizing that individuals differ in boldness rather than conforming to a single average behavioral type. By capturing this spectrum of behavioral variation, the framework highlights how individual differences shape resource use and species interactions. Together, these approaches demonstrate how behavioral flexibility and individual variation can regulate population stability, alter species coexistence, and enhance ecosystem resilience under environmental change.