Collaborative Research: Community ecology of partial consumption: Integrating plant demography into herbivore competition

生态学家对消耗和耗尽共享资源的物种之间的竞争拥有充足的理论基础。资源枯竭，即以足够快的速度消耗资源，以限制其他消费者可用的资源，是不同消费者物种相互作用的一条公认的途径。不幸的是，基于资源耗尽的方法仅适用于本质上消费者-资源交互的子集，甚至可能是少数。许多消费物种只部分消耗资源生物体，似乎并没有实质性地减少可用资源。这包括许多食草动物，它们留下了许多绿色植物材料未被消耗；非致命性寄生虫、寄生虫和病原体，它们的宿主可以在感染时继续觅食、交配和以其他方式生活；以及互助者，如传粉者、防御者和清洁工，它们收取宿主提供的报酬，以换取这些服务。这种物种相互作用的一个关键特征是，资源型有机体通过其生存、生长和繁殖的变化来对部分消费做出反应。这些人口统计反应对资源竞争的影响很少被研究。基于之前有希望的理论结果表明，资源人口统计反应可以关键地影响竞争的结果，这个项目将发展数学理论来实现三个目标。首先，一般理论将确定部分消费的人口统计学在生物环境中可能发挥的不同作用，从草食动物之间的竞争到争夺互惠伙伴的机会。其次，模型将把植物对食草动物攻击的人口统计反应与共享植物宿主的不同食草动物之间的其他已知相互作用途径结合起来。第三，将对生物控制资源种群等应用进行定量研究。该项目开发的理论将在生态科学领域内具有广泛的应用前景，并有可能超出生态科学的范畴。此外，该项目将支持对一名博士后研究员进行定量培训和指导，帮助他们建立和分析解决生态问题的数学模型，以及向非数学受众介绍结果的培训。将尝试从STEM领域任职人数不足的群体中招聘申请者。博士后的参与还将通过更多的出版和展示来扩大研究成果的传播。

Ecologists are well-equipped with theory for competition between species that consume and deplete shared resources. Resource depletion, i.e., consuming resources quickly enough to limit the resources available to other consumers, is a well-established pathway by which different consumer species interact. Unfortunately, approaches based on resource depletion apply to only a subset, and perhaps a minority, of consumer-resource interactions in nature. Many consumer species consume resource organisms only partially, and do not appear substantially to reduce available resources. This includes many herbivores, which leave much green plant material unconsumed; non-fatal parasites, parasitoids, and pathogens, whose hosts can continue to forage, mate, and otherwise go about life while infected; and mutualists such as pollinators, defenders, and cleaners, which collect rewards provided by hosts in return for these services. A key feature of such species interactions is that resource organisms respond to partial consumption via changes in their survival, growth, and reproduction. The effects of these demographic responses on resource competition have been little studied. Building on previous promising theoretical results showing that resource demographic responses can critically affect the outcome of competition, this project will develop mathematical theory to accomplish three goals. First, general theory will establish the different possible roles of the demography of partial consumption in biological settings, ranging from competition between herbivores to competition for access to mutualistic partners. Second, models will integrate plant demographic responses to herbivore attack with other known pathways of interaction between the different herbivores of a shared plant host. Third, applications such as biological control of resource populations will be investigated quantitatively.The theory developed in this project will have broad application within and potentially beyond the ecological sciences. Further, the project will support the quantitative training and mentoring of a postdoctoral researcher in the construction and analysis of mathematical models to address ecological questions, as well as training in presenting results to non-mathematical audiences. Attempts will be made to recruit applicants from groups underrepresented in STEM fields. Postdoctoral involvement will also broaden dissemination of research results through increased publication and presentation.