Thank you, this is an interesting point of view. Now I need to think about what you said and relate this to the food chain composed of invertebrates. Does this work similarly in case of soil food webs where beetles and myriapods hunt for insects, mites, isopods and slugs as in case of lions and zebras?

I also cannot imagine declining a Zebra for a suricate, however I can imagine eating only specific parts of zebra's body.

Best!

Michał

Dear Uwe & Michal,

for my opinion you both are right, but important is scale and direct surroundings. Look, for ins. the famous Gause experiments. If you have to do with protists it can be very important what say Michal. Both compounds - I mean behavioral (meanwhile, experience) and physiological "compatibility" of prey present in some proportion for the every predator or semi-predator, but for cheetah experience orientate it when it has choice of victims, but if hungry will no possibility to select.

I saw ciliated infusoria from Dileptus (absolute predators!) genera that eat diatoms algae that should be absolutely inappropriate for it? So, may be as well important is the stage of attack on prey and physiological state of both?

If take into consideration hunting plants - like Nepenthes Rajah (e.g.) from Borneo, the pharmacy of an object is of dominated importance!

The very good explanation of how it works in compact manner gives Wolfgang Meyerhof & Sigrun Korsching in preface of perfect book

Chemosensory Systems in Mammals, Fishes, and Insects. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009.

And you can read their opinion of the main scientists in the field (12 person)..

Look attached file.

Andrey

Thank you very much! Now I have a lot to think about.

Regards!

Michał Filipiak

Thank you, Uwe, your contribution was valuable and showed me interesting point of view.

If you discuss an organism's characteristics used to interact with environment you should keep in mind that these characteristics evolved and were shaped by environment. Taste is not an exception here. Thus I would expect that "tastiness" is connected with nutritional quality. This work shows that food choice is not something very simple:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304003104_Balancing_macronutrient_intake_in_a_mammalian_carnivore_Disentangling_the_influences_of_Flavour_and_Nutrition

Cheers!

Michał

Article Balancing macronutrient intake in a mammalian carnivore: Dis...

Extra interesting article that shows possibility of identification of nutritional balance even for mammals! I faced such thing when working on a Chapter of my book on Biotsenotic relationg (under preparation). This are some articles devoting insects esp. fire bugs.

Firefly "Femmes Fatales" Acquire Defensive Steroids (Lucibufagins) from their

Firefly Prey (Thomas Eisner; Michael A. Goetz; David E. Hill; Scott R. Smedley; Jerrold Meinwald) 1997.

May be it will be useful like demonstration how lucibufagins (compaund - defensive steroids, that scares spiders ruptors) is obtained from pray! It shows mechanism!

Andrey

Thank you very much, Andrey!

Hello Michal,

If you want to relate Uwe's point to invertebrate food webs, then your question should be about traits (response traits and effect traits) and not feeding habits or energy requirements in prey-predator relationships. 

In your study, i would also suggest you explore other major factors that come into play in prey-predator relationships,  palatability and the phenomenon of trophic cascade.

Appended is a publication on traits.Hope it helps and goodluck with your study!

Beckline.

http://pubs.sciepub.com/aees/2/6/2/

Thank you for your answer, Beckline!