Background

My major goal has been to understand how biotic interactions between species determine their relative abundance and shape their community structure and organization. To reach this goal I have been using the theories of density dependent habitat selection and optimal foraging to study, using behavioral techniques, the biotic interactions among competitors, between predators and its victims and between parasites and their hosts. The target species were gerbils, passerine birds, reptiles, and fish.
At the present I have shifted my main research to the subject of the behavioral games of predator prey interactions.


Current Projects

Do predators manage the fear of their prey so as to maximize their capture success? The behavioral games of predator and prey: To survive the predator must capture the prey and it may do it by managing the prey fear in several distinct patches. The prey should trade off food and safety.

Recent Publications

Wacht-Katz, M. Z. Abramsky, B. P. Kotler, O. Altstein & M. L. Rosenzweig. 2010. Playing the waiting game: predator and prey in a test environment. Evolutionary Ecology Research. 12: 793-801. (http://www.Evolutionary Ecology.com/issues/forthcoming/ar2605.pdf).

Raveh, A., B. Kotler, B. Krasnov, Abramsky, Z. 2011. Driven to distraction:
Detecting the hidden costs of flea parasitism through foraging behavior in gerbils. Ecology Letters. 14:47-51.

Ido Tsurim, Burt P. Kotler, Amir Gilad, Shira Elazary, Zvika Abramsky. 2010. Foraging behavior of an urban bird species: molt gaps, distance to shelter, and predation risk. Ecology. 91: 233-241.

Ph.D. Colorado State University 1976