Further Difficulties in the Analysis of Functional-Response Experiments and a Resolution

The Holling disc equation (Type-II functional response) for predation, which is mathematically equivalent to the Michaelis–Menten enzyme-kinetics and to the Monod microbial-growth equations, has been used in several linear transformations for parameter estimation. The most commonly used is the Lineweaver–Burk double reciprocal. We compare 4 linearizations of the disc equation and a direct nonlinear fit to stimulated predation data. We conclude that (1) the best parameter estimates are obtained by the direct nonlinear method and (2) the Lineweaver–Burk is the worst of the (all unsatisfactory) linearizations. We propose a new nonparametric technique to use when nonlinear methods cannot be used.