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ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF CHARACTER DISPLACEMENT AND NICHE SHIFT. I. ADAPTIVE SHIFTS IN RESOURCE USE WHEN THERE IS COMPETITION FOR NUTRITIONALLY NONSUBSTITUTABLE RESOURCES
Author(s) -
Abrams Peter A.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.84
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1558-5646
pISSN - 0014-3820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1558-5646.1987.tb05836.x
Subject(s) - competition (biology) , biology , resource (disambiguation) , resource acquisition is initialization , interspecific competition , niche , character displacement , ecology , population , per capita , adaptive strategies , coexistence theory , divergence (linguistics) , resource allocation , economics , sympatry , habitat , computer science , market economy , sociology , history , computer network , linguistics , demography , philosophy , archaeology
This paper analyzes the influence of the nutritional status of resources on the adaptive response to interspecific competition in a consumer of those resources. The two cases compared are that in which the resources are nutritionally perfectly substitutable (in the sense of Leon and Tumpson [1975]) and that in which the resources are nonsubstitutable. Each nonsubstitutable resource must be consumed at a certain rate for population growth to occur. Evolutionarily stable strategies of resource utilization are found using models of competition for two resources. If competition occurs solely via the consumer species's effects on resource density, the adaptive response in a consumer's resource‐acquisition traits is: a) divergence away from its competitor's resource‐acquisition traits if resources are perfectly substitutable and b) convergence towards the competitor's resource‐acquisition traits if resources are nonsubstitutable. Exceptions to both of these generalizations may occur if competitor population density affects a consumer species's per capita growth rate independently of effects on resource density. Plants and herbivores often use nonsubstitutable resources. The lack of studies of adaptive responses to competition in these organisms may be responsible for the lack of documented examples of competitive convergence.