Mobility and its sensitivity to fitness differences determine consumer-resource distributions.

ABSTRACT: An animal's movement rate (mobility) and its ability to perceive fitness gradients (fitness sensitivity) determine how well it can exploit resources. Previous models have examined mobility and fitness sensitivity separately and found that mobility, modelled as random movement, prevents animals from staying in high-quality patches, leading to a departure from an ideal free distribution (IFD). However, empirical work shows that animals with higher mobility can more effectively collect environmental information and better sense patch quality, especially when the environment is frequently changed by human activities. Here, we model, for the first time, this positive correlation between mobility and fitness sensitivity and measure its consequences for the populations of a consumer and its resou

SUBMITTER: Jiao J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7353973 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature