Ecosystem Engineers: Feedback and Population Dynamics
Ecosystem Engineers: Feedback and Population Dynamics
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DOI：
10.1086/597216
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发表时间：
2009-04-01
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
Hastings, A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Cuddington, K.;Wilson, W. G.;Hastings, A.
所有生物体都会改变其非生物环境，但生态系统工程师是具有非生物效应的物种，在对种群和群落动态进行预测时可能必须明确考虑这些影响。这项分析的目的是确定工程导致种群动态的条件与仅包含生物相互作用的模型所预测的有质的不同。我们提出了一个耦合生态系统工程师和非生物环境的简单模型。我们假设工程师以取决于工程师密度的速率改变环境条件，并且环境以指数速率衰减回到原始条件。我们确定环境状态对种群动态的反馈何时会导致工程师种群平衡密度、双稳态或失控增长的改变。导致动力学变化的条件，例如系统对工程的敏感性或密度依赖和密度无关控制的改变，定义了工程概念对于生态理解至关重要的情况。
All organisms alter their abiotic environment, but ecosystem engineers are species with abiotic effects that may have to be explicitly accounted for when making predictions about population and community dynamics. The goal of this analysis is to identify those conditions in which engineering leads to population dynamics that are qualitatively different than one would predict using models that incorporate only biotic interactions. We present a simple model coupling an ecosystem engineer and the abiotic environment. We assume that the engineer alters environmental conditions at a rate dependent on engineer density and that the environment decays back to original conditions at an exponential rate. We determine when the feedback to population dynamics through environmental state can lead to altered equilibrium densities, bistability, or runaway growth of the engineer population. The conditions leading to changes in dynamics, such as susceptibility of a system to engineering or alteration of density-dependent and density-independent controls, define cases in which the engineering concept is essential for ecological understanding.