Meaning & use
predation
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Meanings
noununcountablebiology
The way in which one animal hunts, kills and feeds on another animal.
Grammar: Uncountable; usually followed by on: predation on young birds.
Patterns
- predation on something
- predation by something
Predation by foxes reduced the number of ground-nesting birds.
Seabird colonies on islands face heavy predation from rats.
Predation keeps the deer population from growing too large.
noununcountabletechnical
Any ecological relationship in which one living thing feeds on another, including the way animals eat plants or seeds in some contexts.
Grammar: Used in ecology texts; this broader sense is less common than the first.
Patterns
- seed predation
Seed predation by insects can destroy most of a tree's crop.
Biologists measure predation rates to understand food webs.
Predation of insects by plants such as the Venus flytrap is rare.
Common combinations
- predation risk
- Small fish gather in groups to lower their predation risk.
- avoid predation
- Camouflage helps many insects avoid predation.
- predation pressure
- High predation pressure shapes the behavior of the prey.
- predation rate
- The predation rate rose after the wolves returned.
- escape predation
- The nest was hidden to escape predation.
Synonyms and how they differ
- hunting
- Hunting is the everyday word and includes human sport, while predation is a scientific term for the animal relationship.
- carnivory
- Carnivory describes the habit of eating meat, not the act of catching prey.
- parasitism
- Parasitism means living on a host without killing it quickly, so it differs from predation, where the victim is killed.
Word family
Commonly confused: predation or predilection? predation or depredation?
predation vs predilection
Predilection means a special liking for something and is unrelated to hunting.
predation vs depredation
Depredation means the act of robbing or destroying, often by an enemy, and is more about damage than hunting for food.
Practice
The decline of the rabbit population was linked to heavy ____ by foxes.
Choose one answer.
Predation is hunting and eating by predators. Migration, pollination and hibernation are real biological processes, but none means one animal eating another.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “predation”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.