An understanding of how consumers choose among habitats is essential to predicting community level responses to predator and resource manipulations. Current models predict individual habitat choice when mortality risk and feeding rates vary among habitats, but do not incorporate dynamic resources. This study will extend these models to include resource dynamics, showing how the distribution of consumers among habitats is dependent on mortality risk and resource productivity. Specifically, the response of consumers and resources to predator and nutrient manipulations in simple, two habitat, experimental systems will be tested. In these systems, small bluegills (Lepomis macrochirus) are free to move between paired experimental pools, but their predators, largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) are confined to specific pools. These pools also contain self-supporting populations of zooplankton (the bluegill's resource). The research will address the following specific questions: 1) Under the situation where consumers can choose among habitats with differing mortality risks and self-renewing resources, do consumers use habitats optimally, 2) How does the portion of the consumer population in each habitat vary with varying resource productivity, and 3) What are the consequences of consumer habitat choice to resource dynamics within habitats? These studies provide the first empirical test of theory linking the behavior of habitat selection to its consequences for community dynamics.
