Novel perspectives on classic functional responses: the stochastic roots of feeding dynamics

Novel perspectives on classic functional responses: the stochastic roots of feeding dynamics | Authorea try { document.documentElement.classList.add('js'); } catch (e) { } var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'G-8VDV14Y67G']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); Skip to main content Preprints Collections Wiley Open Research IET Open Research Ecological Society of Japan All Collections About About Authorea FAQs Contact Us Quick Search anywhere Search for preprint articles, keywords, etc. Search Search ADVANCED SEARCH SCROLL This is a preprint and has not been peer reviewed. Data may be preliminary. 13 February 2026 V1 Latest version Share on Novel perspectives on classic functional responses: the stochastic roots of feeding dynamics Authors : Gian Palamara , Jose A. Capitan 0000-0002-6245-0088 , and David Alonso 0000-0002-8888-1644 [email protected] Authors Info & Affiliations https://doi.org/10.22541/au.177100398.89806984/v1 178 views 119 downloads Contents Abstract Supplementary Material Information & Authors Metrics & Citations View Options References Figures Tables Media Share Abstract Functional responses describe the per capita consumption rate of consumers and have been central to ecological theory since Holling’s seminal work. Holling observed that feeding rates generally saturate with increasing resource density and may decline at high consumer densities due to interference among individuals. Although functional responses underpin much of ecological modeling, their derivation from first principles has remained unclear. Here we show that this depends critically on whether feeding rates are averaged over time for individuals or across populations—a distinction absent from existing literature. We provide a unified framework that clarifies the common foundations and assumptions of different functional response forms, which offers a new perspective on how consumer behavior and stochasticity shape emergent feeding rates and, as a consequence, consumer–resource dynamics. We do so by revisiting a classic approach that models feeding interactions using individual-based reaction schemes, which highlights the shared assumptions underlying various functional response models. We show that the classic Beddington–DeAngelis functional response can be derived by time-averaging the consumption rate of a single consumer. In contrast, averaging across a population of consumers yields a distinct predator-dependent functional response—a natural extension of the population-averaged Holling Type II response that incorporates different forms of consumer interference. We further extend this framework to derive Holling Type III and multispecies versions of the Holling Type II functional response. Using synthetic data, we illustrate how the associated probability distributions can be used to estimate model parameters from feeding experiments. In contrast, averaging across a population of consumers yields a distinct predator-dependent functional response. Supplementary Material File (oik-12420-file002.pdf) Download 3.68 MB Information & Authors Information Version history V1 Version 1 13 February 2026 Copyright This work is licensed under a Non Exclusive No Reuse License. Keywords beddington-deangelis functional responses higher-order interactions holling type ii multi-species holling type ii and iii stochastic feeding processes Authors Affiliations Gian Palamara CNR View all articles by this author Jose A. Capitan 0000-0002-6245-0088 Universidad Politecnica de Madrid View all articles by this author David Alonso 0000-0002-8888-1644 [email protected] CSIC View all articles by this author Metrics & Citations Metrics Article Usage 178 views 119 downloads .FvxKWukQNSOunydq8rnd { width: 100px; } Citations Download citation Gian Palamara, Jose A. Capitan, David Alonso. Novel perspectives on classic functional responses: the stochastic roots of feeding dynamics. Authorea . 13 February 2026. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22541/au.177100398.89806984/v1 If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download. 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