Species Coexistence in Ecosystems with Specialist Predation: Trophic Regulation in Gradients of Resource Productivity

Abstract:

Specialist predation is believed to play a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity of ecosystems, whereas its underlying mechanism is still unclear. Here we analyzed a general model of a tritrophic system containing specialist predators. A new graphical approach based on the balance of resource recruitment and consumption was used. The analyses show that specialist predation can promote coexistence of producer species by increasing resource availability, which waken the exploitive competition between producers. The R* rule, the dominant rule in traditional resource competition theory, is still dominant in infertile environment. In rich environment, the occurrence of specialist predator increases the equilibrium resource concentration and thus leads to the coexistence of the weak competitor. In high resource productivity environment all the species can coexist.

• Periodical: Advanced Materials Research (Volumes 1073-1076)
• Pages: 1178-1181
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.1073-1076.1178
• Online since: December 2014
• Authors: Lei Zhao, Hua Yong Zhang*, Wang Tian, Fang Zhao
• Keywords: Coexistence, Exploitative Competition, Graphical Approach, Resource Productivity, Specialist Predation

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