{"product_id":"9781461597865","title":"Producers and Scroungers","description":"Many associations between organisms, both intra-and interspecific, can be usefully regarded as 'producer\/scrounger' (P\/S) relationships. One or more individuals or species (scroungers) within the association in some way use the behavioural or physiological investment of others (pro­ ducers) to reduce their costs of obtaining a limited resource. Examples are legion: many parasites take up more or less permanent residence in or on a host individual and use the host's ingestive, digestive or circu­ latory processes to reduce their own feeding costs; pirate (ldepto­ parasitic) individuals or species exploit the foraging investment of 'host' individuals\/species by stealing procured food; inter- and intraspecific brood parasites exploit the nest-building behaviour and parental care of other species\/individuals; non-displaying 'satellite' males may usurp matings (ldeptogamy) from higher ranking males whose display effort has attracted females to a courtship gathering, and so on. Scroungers appear to reduce the costs of exploiting a resource by letting producers invest the necessary time and energy in foraging, building, incubating, displaying, defending, evolving anti-predator adaptations, etc. , and then usurping the results of their efforts. The utility of scrounging, however, is conditional on a number of factors including the availability of producers, the number of scroungers exploiting them, the cost of scrounging in terms of producer avoidance, defence and\/or retaliation, the value of the limited resource and the scope for alternative strategies of resource exploitation. This book brings together theoretical and empirical studies of PIS relationships in a wide variety of contexts and species.","brand":"C. J. Barnard","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46765695828286,"sku":"9781461597865","price":1557.97,"currency_code":"ZAR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4357\/7662\/products\/9781461597865_545db0bf-27f1-41e5-864c-4889f4b8e854.jpg?v=1707472264","url":"https:\/\/exclusivebooks.co.za\/products\/9781461597865","provider":"Exclusive Books Online","version":"1.0","type":"link"}