MacArthur's consumer-resource model

Abstract MacArthur's consumer-resource model is reviewed and new ways of understanding it are presented. Statistical measures of association between the utilization functions of different species are developed to show how coexistence conditions can be expressed in simple and understandable ways without the need to introduce strong symmetry assumptions. It is hoped that this new analysis will encourage both the use of the model in its full form without special simplifying assumptions, and the development of competition models of similar biological richness but different basic assumptions.

[1]  Peter Chesson,et al.  Interactions Between Environment and Competition: How Fluctuations Mediate Coexistence and Competitive Exclusion , 1988 .

[2]  Daniel Simberloff,et al.  Ecological Communities: Conceptual Issues and the Evidence , 1984 .

[3]  R. Peters.  The Ecological Implications of Body Size , 1983 .

[4]  R. M. Arthur,et al.  Species packing, and what competition minimizes. , 1969, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[5]  R. Macarthur.  Species packing and competitive equilibrium for many species. , 1970, Theoretical population biology.

[6]  R. G. Casten,et al.  Global Stability and Multiple Domains of Attraction in Ecological Systems , 1979, The American Naturalist.

[7]  J. Roughgarden.  Theory of Population Genetics and Evolutionary Ecology: An Introduction , 1995 .

[8]  Michael Turelli,et al.  Niche Overlap and Invasion of Competitors in Random Environments II. The Effects of Demographic Stochasticity , 1980 .

[9]  T. Schoener,et al.  Competition and the form of habitat shift. , 1974, Theoretical population biology.

[10]  B. Goh.  Global Stability in Many-Species Systems , 1977, The American Naturalist.

[11]  T. Schoener.  The Controversy over Interspecific Competition , 1982 .

[12]  D. Tilman.  Resource competition and community structure. , 1983, Monographs in population biology.

[13]  R M May,et al.  Niche overlap as a function of environmental variability. , 1972, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[14]  David A. Spiller.  Consumptive-Competition Coefficients: An Experimental Analysis with Spiders , 1986, The American Naturalist.

[15]  Thomas W. Schoener,et al.  15. Size Differences Among Sympatric, Bird-Eating Hawks: A Worldwide Survey , 1984 .

[16]  T. Schoener,et al.  Some Methods for Calculating Competition Coefficients from Resource-Utilization Spectra , 1974, The American Naturalist.

[17]  S. Levin.  Lectu re Notes in Biomathematics , 1983 .

[18]  Daniel Simberloff,et al.  SANTA ROSALIA RECONSIDERED: SIZE RATIOS AND COMPETITION , 1981, Evolution; international journal of organic evolution.

[19]  R. May,et al.  Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems , 1976, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[20]  R. Macarthur,et al.  The Limiting Similarity, Convergence, and Divergence of Coexisting Species , 1967, The American Naturalist.

[21]  Ted J. Case,et al.  MacArthur's Minimization Principle: A Footnote , 1980, The American Naturalist.

[22]  P. Parsons,et al.  Geographical ecology. Patterns in the distribution of species: By Robert H. MacArthur. Pp. 269. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. 1984. Paperback £13.90 (Original hardback edition Harpes & Row, 1972) , 1985 .

[23]  Peter Chesson,et al.  Community consequences of life-history traits in a variable environment , 1988 .