Applications of consumer-resource models in ecology and evolution

大多数自然群落由分布在零星地貌上的食物网组成。预测任何一个物种的命运都需要了解两方面：(1)斑块内捕食者-猎物(消费者-资源)的相互作用；(2)斑块之间运动的性质。这两个过程都对自然种群如何应对环境变化产生了重大影响，环境变化包括人类收获的增加、气候变化和引进物种。这两个过程是相互作用的，因为生物体在斑块之间的移动通常受到出生和死亡率的影响，而出生和死亡率在很大程度上又取决于消费者与资源的相互作用。拟议的研究将使用数学模型来帮助建立理解这种相互作用的量化基础。为此，它将首先使用分布在不同地形上的相互作用的物种集合的数学模型来探索运动行为的演变。由此产生的对运动的理解将被纳入描述栖息地斑块内物种相互作用的模型中。各种不同的运动行为可能在不同的生态环境中受到青睐，并将分析具有这种运动行为的各种不同的食物网。目标将是确定适应性运动和食物网相互作用的组合如何改变局部物种对其环境中可能发生的各种变化的进化和生态反应。这包括物理和化学条件的变化，死亡率的变化，以及捕食者、竞争对手或与局部物种相互作用的其他物种的丰度变化。这些结果将有助于解释为什么高度简化的模型对未来生态系统变化的预测往往与复杂的模拟模型截然不同。

Most natural communities consist of food webs distributed across a patchy landscape. Predicting the fate of any one species requires an understanding of both: (1) the set of predator-prey (consumer-resource) interactions within patches; and (2) the nature of movement between patches. Both processes have major effects on how natural populations respond to environmental changes, including increased harvest by humans, climate change, and introduced species. The two processes interact, because movement of organisms between patches is generally influenced by birth and death rates, which are in turn determined largely by consumer-resource interactions. The proposed research will use mathematical models help to build a quantitative basis for understanding this interaction. It will do so by first exploring the evolution of movement behaviour using mathematical models of interacting sets of species distributed across a varied landscape. The resulting understanding of movement will be incorporated into models that describe the interaction of species within habitat patches. A variety of different movement behaviours are likely to be favoured in different ecological circumstances, and a variety of different food webs with such movement behaviours will be analyzed. The goal will be to determine how the combination of adaptive movement and food web interactions alters the evolutionary and ecological responses of a focal species to a variety of changes that may occur in its environment. This includes changes in physical and chemical conditions, altered mortality, and altered abundances of predators, competitors, or other species with which the focal species interacts. The results will help explain why highly simplified models have often produced very different predictions about future changes in ecological systems than have complex simulation models.