Is it mostly true that predators or parasites traverse wider spatial areas than their prey or hosts?

Question

Does it tend to be true that as you go up the food chain, the species tend to cover wider areas? I am basically asking whether a population's prey varies spatially more than a population's predators and parasites, which would vary more temporally: the predators and parasites to which a population is exposed tends to be the same across the population but the prey vary more spatially because the prey tend to traverse smaller areas. I would think this were true, since predators have larger body sizes and my thinking is that species with larger body sizes tend to travel farther and parasites may locate on multiple hosts, which collectively carry them farther than any single host. This is my inference, but I do not even know what to type into Google Scholar in order to check this.

Answer 1

I cannot speak to parasites, but predators require a larger range than most prey animals. This is because of the way energy is distributed. The familiar energy pyramid shows that as you go up the food chain, less and less energy makes its way to the next level.Herbivores can easily acquire all the energy they need from a smaller area, as they eat the abundant plant material. Predators have more limited options, as they can only gain energy from other animals. There are less animals to eat than plants, so predators have to range farther to get enough food.