Modelling nutritional interactions: from individuals to communities

Authored by Stephen J. Simpson, David Raubenheimer, Michael A. Charleston, Fiona J. Clissold, ARC-NZ Vegetation Function Network

Date Published: 2010-01

DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2009.06.012

Sponsors: Australian Research Council (ARC)

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Flow charts

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

Nutrient acquisition is a major context for ecological interactions among species but ecologists and nutritionists have developed theory in isolation from each other. Developments in agent-based modelling, state-space modelling of nutrition and multi-scale modelling of landscape ecology provide the components for a new synthesis in nutritional ecology linking the nutritional biology of individual organisms to population- and community-level processes across multiple scales within an evolutionary context. We review the core elements for such a synthesis and set out the principles for a generic modelling framework that could be used to test specific ecological hypotheses.

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