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Quantitative descriptions of resource choice in ecological models

  • Special Feature: Review
  • Rapid Adaptation
  • Published:
Population Ecology

Abstract

This article reviews the subject of resource choice by consumers. It is concerned with how such choice has been and should be represented in quantitative ecological models. This requires consideration of the dynamics of behavioral change and the fitness consequences of different resource intake rates. The topic is important because of the impact of choice on the functional response of the consumer to each of the resources it consumes. A variety of open questions related to choice are addressed. These include: the relationship between optimal diet choice and switching; the relationship between adaptive choice of two or resources and type-3 functional responses to a single resource; whether switching behavior requires choice and whether choice always results in switching behavior; why partial preferences are observed; whether choice between habitats is fundamentally different from choice within habitats; how between-individual variation in parameters related to resource use alters functional responses measured at the population level. The impacts of choice on stability are discussed briefly. The costs of increased resource use and the type of nutritional interactions between resources are particularly important determinants of adaptive resource choice, and are considered in some detail.

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Acknowledgments

I thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for financial support. I am also grateful to Professors Masakazu Shimada and Hiroyuki Matsuda for allowing me the opportunity to present this work at the 24th Meeting of the Japanese Population Ecology Society, and to two reviewers for their helpful comments on the first draft of this article.

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  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Harbord St., Toronto, ON, M5S 3G5, Canada

    Peter A. Abrams

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  1. Peter A. Abrams
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Correspondence to Peter A. Abrams.

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Abrams, P.A. Quantitative descriptions of resource choice in ecological models. Popul Ecol 52, 47–58 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10144-009-0175-z

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