Grassland-herbivore interactions: how do grazers coexist?

The American Naturalist
K D FarnsworthJ A Beecham

Abstract

We develop a new approach to modeling grazing systems that links foraging characteristics (intake and digestive constraints) with resource dynamics via the probability of encounter with different grass heights. Three complementary models are presented: the generation of a grass height structure through selective grazing; investigating the conditions for consumer coexistence; and, using a simplified resource structure, the consequences for consumer abundance. The main finding is that coexistence between grazers differing in body size is possible if a single-resource type becomes differentiated in its height structure. Large grazers can facilitate food availability for smaller species but with the latter being competitively dominant. The relative preference given to different resource partitions is important in determining the nature of population interactions. Large-body and small-body grazer populations can interact through competitive, parasitic, commensalist, or amensalist relationships, depending on the way they partition the resource as well as their relative populations and the dynamics of resource renewal. The models provide new concepts of multispecies carrying capacity (stock equilibrium) in grazed systems with implicat...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jul 21, 2005·Oecologia·F Javier Pérez-Barbería, Iain J Gordon
Jun 3, 2015·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Tyler R KartzinelRobert M Pringle
Jun 12, 2008·Ecology·Martyn G Murray, David R Baird
Oct 3, 2007·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·F Javier Pérez-BarberíaRobin I M Dunbar
Nov 19, 2015·PloS One·F J Pérez-BarberíaI J Gordon
May 23, 2015·PloS One·Yong ZhangWillem Fred de Boer
Sep 23, 2016·Ecology and Evolution·Robert S C CookeThomas H G Ezard

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