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Course details for Consumer - Resource Interactions S213
Course general details
Consumer - Resource Interactions
S213
Course contents

All organisms require inputs of energy and/or materials in order to grow and reproduce. 'Resources' are by definition any of these vital inputs whose availability to other individuals can be reduced via uptake mechanisms (consumption) or increased through non-uptake mechanisms (e.g. plants may increase water availability by shading and nutrient cycling).
Resources can be light, water and nutrients as well as living organisms. In the latter case, the consumer-resource interaction can usually be classified as a host-parasite or predator-prey interaction. However, consumer-resource interactions are also the basis of exploitative competition (in which two or more consumers share resources), facilitation (in which one consumer increases resources for another) and many mutualisms, where species may trade 'resources', for example by providing food in exchange for protection or movement of gametes. Most organisms function as both consumers and resources in a food web. The functional and numerical responses of the consumer and a function describing resource population growth are essential components of any consumer-resource interaction. Understanding these responses often requires that we understand the adaptive processes – evolution, behavior, and phenotypic plasticity – that shape these interactions on both short and long time-scales. This course will illustrate how adopting a consumer-resource approach can change our understanding of interactions, and how adaptive processes can be important in understanding both academic and applied problems in ecology.
Intermediate
2.00

This course has been scheduled for the following periods:

Period Location Credits Options
Jan 31, 2010 - Feb 4, 2010 Hotel and Conference Centre De Bergse Bossen, Traaij 229, Driebergen (www.debergsebossen.nl) 1.50 Details
Last modified on Oct 30, 2006 02:51:58 PM by SENSE Administrator (2242 Reads)
Keywords: Ecology