Lateral diffusion of nutrients by mammalian herbivores in terrestrial ecosystems.

ABSTRACT: Animals translocate nutrients by consuming nutrients at one point and excreting them or dying at another location. Such lateral fluxes may be an important mechanism of nutrient supply in many ecosystems, but lack quantification and a systematic theoretical framework for their evaluation. This paper presents a mathematical framework for quantifying such fluxes in the context of mammalian herbivores. We develop an expression for lateral diffusion of a nutrient, where the diffusivity is a biologically determined parameter depending on the characteristics of mammals occupying the domain, including size-dependent phenomena such as day range, metabolic demand, food passage time, and population size. Three findings stand out: (a) Scaling law-derived estimates of diffusion parameters are comparabl

SUBMITTER: Wolf A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3739793 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature