Journal article
Modelling nutritional interactions: from individuals to communities
Stephen J Simpson, David Raubenheimer, Michael A Charleston, Fiona J Clissold
TRENDS IN ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION | ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON | Published : 2010
Abstract
Nutrient acquisition is a major context for ecological interactions among species but ecologists and nutritionists have developed theory in isolation from each other. Developments in agent-based modelling, state-space modelling of nutrition and multi-scale modelling of landscape ecology provide the components for a new synthesis in nutritional ecology linking the nutritional biology of individual organisms to population- and community-level processes across multiple scales within an evolutionary context. We review the core elements for such a synthesis and set out the principles for a generic modelling framework that could be used to test specific ecological hypotheses.
Grants
Funding Acknowledgements
This paper arose from discussions between the first four authors, which provided the basis for the inaugural meeting of a working group on herbivory, supported by the ARC-NZ Vegetation Function Research Network. We are grateful to the ARC for support and to Mark Westoby for coordinating the network. We thank Pedro Telleria Teixeira for logistical support in running the workshop.