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

生态学家们有充分的理论来解释消耗和耗尽共享资源的物种之间的竞争。资源枯竭，即消耗资源的速度快到足以限制其他消费者可获得的资源，是不同消费者物种相互作用的公认途径。不幸的是，基于资源消耗的方法只适用于自然界中消费者-资源交互的一个子集，也许是少数。许多消费物种只是部分地消耗资源生物，似乎并没有实质性地减少可用资源。这包括许多食草动物，它们留下了许多未被消耗的绿色植物材料；非致命的寄生虫、类寄生虫和病原体，其宿主在感染后可以继续觅食、交配和以其他方式生活；以及诸如传粉者、捍卫者和清洁工等互惠主义者，它们通过这些服务获得寄主提供的奖励。这种物种相互作用的一个关键特征是，资源生物通过其生存、生长和繁殖的变化对部分消耗做出反应。这些人口反应对资源竞争的影响很少得到研究。在先前有希望的理论结果的基础上，该项目将发展数学理论，以实现三个目标。这些理论结果表明，资源人口反应可以严重影响竞争的结果。首先，一般理论将建立部分消费人口在生物环境中的不同可能作用，范围从草食动物之间的竞争到互惠伙伴的竞争。其次，模型将整合植物种群对食草动物攻击的反应与共享植物宿主的不同食草动物之间其他已知的相互作用途径。第三，对资源种群的生物控制等应用进行定量研究。在这个项目中发展的理论将在生态科学内部和潜在之外有广泛的应用。此外，该项目将支持一名博士后在构建和分析数学模型以解决生态问题方面的定量培训和指导，以及向非数学观众展示结果的培训。将尝试从STEM领域中代表性不足的群体中招募申请人。博士后的参与也将通过增加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.