New perspectives on the feeding ecology and trophic dynamics of fishes Environmental Biology of Fishes

Feeding – the linked processes of finding, eating, and digesting food – is a complex interplay between behavior, morphology, physiology, population dynamics (of predators, prey and competitors), and predator-prey interactions. Feeding occurs in an ecological context, where it affects not only the energy transfer and subsequent growth and survival of individual predators and prey, but also their distribution, abundance, and demographics. Moreover, these processes can be dynamic, changing population productivity and trophic structure at ecological or evolutionary time scales. Thus, feeding ecology and trophic dynamics is a broad, interdisciplinary field that spans across organismal, population, community and ecosystem science.