The effect of the Holling type II functional response on apparent competition

This article analyzes the classical 2-resource–1-consumer apparent competition community module with the Holling type II functional response. Two types of resource regulation (top-down vs. combined top-down and bottom-up) and two types of consumer behaviors (inflexible consumers with fixed preferenc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Theoretical population biology 2006-12, Vol.70 (4), p.421-430
Main Authors: Křivan, Vlastimil, Eisner, Jan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Apparent competition
Biological Evolution
Chaos
Ecology
Evolutionary ecology
Multiple attractors
Nonlinear Dynamics
Optimal foraging
Patch dynamics
Population dynamics
The ideal free distribution
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Summary:This article analyzes the classical 2-resource–1-consumer apparent competition community module with the Holling type II functional response. Two types of resource regulation (top-down vs. combined top-down and bottom-up) and two types of consumer behaviors (inflexible consumers with fixed preferences for resources vs. adaptive consumers) are considered. When resources grow exponentially and consumers are inflexible foragers, one resource is always outcompeted due to strong apparent competition. Density dependent resource growth relaxes apparent competition so that resources can coexist. As multiple attractors (either equilibria or limit cycles) coexist, population dynamics and community composition depend on initial population densities. Population dynamics change dramatically when consumers forage adaptively. In this case, the results both for top-down, and combined top-down and bottom-up regulation are similar and they show that species persistence occurs for a much larger set of parameter values when compared with inflexible consumers. Moreover, population dynamics will be chaotic when resource carrying capacities are high enough. This shows that adaptive consumer switching can destabilize population dynamics.
ISSN:0040-5809
1096-0325
DOI:10.1016/j.tpb.2006.07.004