Equilibrium abundance of three consumer genotypes (B: asexual, dark bars; sexual, light bars) and their respective three prey resources (A). In (A) a horizontal line indicates the carrying capacity of all three resources (K = 1000). All parameters are identical across consumer-resource pairs (r = 1.5, a = 0.01, b = 0.05, d = 0.15) except that P₂ (sexual genotype Aa) has attack rate a = 0.001.

The effects of individual predator variation in attack rates (a) and handling times (b) on rates of prey consumption. In both figures, the feeding rate f -- a function of an individual’s attack rate and handling time -- is plotted as a solid black line. For a dimorphic population consisting of individuals with low and high trait attack rates (or handling times), the average feeding rate f̄(a) is highlighted in blue and the feeding rate of the average individual f(ā) is highlighted in red. For any composition of individuals with low and high trait values, the average feeding rate lies on the thick dashed line. When the feeding rate is a concave function of the attack rate, the average feeding rate is lower than the feeding rate of the average individual. Conversely, feeding rate is a convex function of handling time and so variance in handling means the average feeding rate is higher than the feeding rate of the average individual.