Consumer power as the major evolutionary force

✍ Scribed by Koichiro Matsuno

• Book ID: 102612866
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 421 KB
• Volume: 173
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5193
• DOI: 10.1006/jtbi.1995.0051

✦ Synopsis

Each trophic level in evolving ecosystems can behave as either a supplier toward the downstream of trophic energy flow or a consumer toward the upstream, or an arbitrary mixture of the two. We show that each trophic level behaves almost completely as a consumer in evolutionarily sustainable ecosystems. The present prevalence of consumers in evolving ecosystems derives from a model trophic dynamics minimizing the artificial constraints to be applied arbitrarily.