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Discrete consumers, small scale resource heterogeneity, and population stability
Author(s) -
Nisbet Roger M.,
De Roos Andre M.,
Wilson William G.,
Snyder Robin E.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
ecology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.852
H-Index - 265
eISSN - 1461-0248
pISSN - 1461-023X
DOI - 10.1046/j.1461-0248.1998.00011.x
Subject(s) - resource (disambiguation) , homogeneous , population , ecology , stability (learning theory) , scale (ratio) , resource distribution , econometrics , economics , resource allocation , computer science , geography , statistical physics , biology , physics , market economy , computer network , demography , cartography , machine learning , sociology
We present a consumer‐resource model in which individual consumers subsist on a continuum of resource distributed over a very large number of small “bite‐sized” patches, each patch being sufficiently small that all its resource is eaten whenever a consumer visits. This form of consumer–resource interaction forces a heterogeneous distribution of resource among the patches, and may dampen out the large amplitude, consumer‐resource cycles that are predicted by traditional models of well‐mixed, spatially homogeneous systems. The resource equilibrium does not increase with enrichment, a prediction that distinguishes this model from models that invoke direct or indirect consumer density dependence as a stabilizing mechanism.