Answer:
In predation, one organism kills and consumes another. Predation provides energy to prolong the life and promote the reproduction of the organism that does the killing, the predator, to the detriment of the organism being consumed, the prey. Predation influences organisms at two ecological levels. At the level of the individual, the prey organism has an abrupt decline in fitness, as measured by its lifetime reproductive success, because it will never reproduce again. At the level of the community, predation reduces the number of individuals in the prey population.
The best-known examples of predation involve carnivorous interactions, in which one animal consumes another. Think of wolves hunting moose, owls hunting mice, or shrews hunting worms and insects. Less obvious carnivorous interactions involve many small individuals consuming a larger one. Such group predation is common among social carnivores such as lions, hyenas, and wolves. Group predation also occurs with ants and social spiders. This is, however, only part of the picture. Seed consumption can sometimes constitute predation. Seeds are considered organisms. Under ideal circumstances, seeds grow to become plants. However, consumption of a seed kills the plant before it can grow, making seed consumption an example of predation.
Not all predators are animals. Carnivorous plants, such as the Venus fly trap and the pitcher plant, consume insects. Pitcher plants catch their prey in a pool of water containing digestive enzymes, whereas the Venus fly trap captures an insect between the two lobes of a leaf and seals the insect inside with digestive enzymes. These plants absorb nutrients from the insects as they become available during digestion. On a microscopic scale, protozoa and bacteria also consume prey organisms. They play an important role in maintaining population sizes in microbial communities, which promotes the diversity of microorganisms and contributes to a stable community structure.
