Skip to main content
Journal cover image

Consumer effects on the vital rates of their resource can determine the outcome of competition between consumers.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Lee, CT; Miller, TEX; Inouye, BD
Published in: The American naturalist
October 2011

Current competition theory does not adequately address the fact that competitors may affect the survival, growth, and reproductive rates of their resources. Ecologically important interactions in which consumers affect resource vital rates range from parasitism and herbivory to mutualism. We present a general model of competition that explicitly includes consumer-dependent resource vital rates. We build on the classic MacArthur model of competition for multiple resources, allowing direct comparison with expectations from established concepts of resource-use overlap. Consumers share a stage-structured resource population but may use the different stages to different extents, as they do the different independent resources in the classic model. Here, however, the stages are dynamically linked via consumer-dependent vital rates. We show that consumers' effects on resource vital rates result in two important departures from classic results. First, consumers can coexist despite identical use of resource stages, provided each competitor shifts the resource stage distribution toward stages that benefit other species. Second, consumers specializing on different resource stages can compete strongly, possibly resulting in competitive exclusion despite a lack of resource stage-use overlap. Our model framework demonstrates the critical role that consumer-dependent resource vital rates can play in competitive dynamics in a wide range of biological systems.

Duke Scholars

Altmetric Attention Stats
Dimensions Citation Stats

Published In

The American naturalist

DOI

EISSN

1537-5323

ISSN

0003-0147

Publication Date

October 2011

Volume

178

Issue

4

Start / End Page

452 / 463

Related Subject Headings

  • Population Dynamics
  • Models, Biological
  • Ecosystem
  • Ecology
  • Ecology
  • Computer Simulation
  • Competitive Behavior
  • 31 Biological sciences
  • 06 Biological Sciences
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Lee, C. T., Miller, T. E. X., & Inouye, B. D. (2011). Consumer effects on the vital rates of their resource can determine the outcome of competition between consumers. The American Naturalist, 178(4), 452–463. https://doi.org/10.1086/661986
Lee, Charlotte T., Tom E. X. Miller, and Brian D. Inouye. “Consumer effects on the vital rates of their resource can determine the outcome of competition between consumers.The American Naturalist 178, no. 4 (October 2011): 452–63. https://doi.org/10.1086/661986.
Lee CT, Miller TEX, Inouye BD. Consumer effects on the vital rates of their resource can determine the outcome of competition between consumers. The American naturalist. 2011 Oct;178(4):452–63.
Lee, Charlotte T., et al. “Consumer effects on the vital rates of their resource can determine the outcome of competition between consumers.The American Naturalist, vol. 178, no. 4, Oct. 2011, pp. 452–63. Epmc, doi:10.1086/661986.
Lee CT, Miller TEX, Inouye BD. Consumer effects on the vital rates of their resource can determine the outcome of competition between consumers. The American naturalist. 2011 Oct;178(4):452–463.
Journal cover image

Published In

The American naturalist

DOI

EISSN

1537-5323

ISSN

0003-0147

Publication Date

October 2011

Volume

178

Issue

4

Start / End Page

452 / 463

Related Subject Headings

  • Population Dynamics
  • Models, Biological
  • Ecosystem
  • Ecology
  • Ecology
  • Computer Simulation
  • Competitive Behavior
  • 31 Biological sciences
  • 06 Biological Sciences