Competitive coexistence through intermediate polyphagy

John Vandermeer; Mercedes Pascual

doi:10.1016/j.ecocom.2005.05.005

Competitive coexistence through intermediate polyphagy

John Vandermeer, Mercedes Pascual

Biology and Genomics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Communities containing species that are not niche differentiated require some mechanism to avoid the expected competitive exclusion of all but one or a few species. Predator pressure has long been held to be one of those mechanisms. Here, we show that the critical feature of predation is not its intensity, but its degree of specialization. Neither highly specialist nor highly generalist predators are effective at deterring competitive exclusion, but rather predators that exhibit an intermediate level of polyphagy can effectively provide such a mechanism.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	37-43
Number of pages	7
Journal	Ecological Complexity
Volume	3
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecocom.2005.05.005
State	Published - Mar 2006

Keywords

Competitive coexistence
Intermediate polyphagy
Predator pressure
Specialization

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Ecological Modeling

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10.1016/j.ecocom.2005.05.005

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abstract = "Communities containing species that are not niche differentiated require some mechanism to avoid the expected competitive exclusion of all but one or a few species. Predator pressure has long been held to be one of those mechanisms. Here, we show that the critical feature of predation is not its intensity, but its degree of specialization. Neither highly specialist nor highly generalist predators are effective at deterring competitive exclusion, but rather predators that exhibit an intermediate level of polyphagy can effectively provide such a mechanism.",

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N2 - Communities containing species that are not niche differentiated require some mechanism to avoid the expected competitive exclusion of all but one or a few species. Predator pressure has long been held to be one of those mechanisms. Here, we show that the critical feature of predation is not its intensity, but its degree of specialization. Neither highly specialist nor highly generalist predators are effective at deterring competitive exclusion, but rather predators that exhibit an intermediate level of polyphagy can effectively provide such a mechanism.

AB - Communities containing species that are not niche differentiated require some mechanism to avoid the expected competitive exclusion of all but one or a few species. Predator pressure has long been held to be one of those mechanisms. Here, we show that the critical feature of predation is not its intensity, but its degree of specialization. Neither highly specialist nor highly generalist predators are effective at deterring competitive exclusion, but rather predators that exhibit an intermediate level of polyphagy can effectively provide such a mechanism.

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KW - Predator pressure

KW - Specialization

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Competitive coexistence through intermediate polyphagy

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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