Dynamics of a plant-herbivore model.

Dynamics of a discrete-time plant-herbivore model

The Influence of Plant and Herbivore Characteristics on the Interaction between Induced Resistance and Herbivore Population Dynamics.

Induced plant resistance may contribute to regulating or driving fluctuations in insect herbivore populations. However, experimental demonstrations of induced resistance affecting long-term herbivore population dynamics are lacking, and few models find that induced resistance drives cycles in herbivore populations. Here a simulation model is used to explore the influence of characteristics of t...

Monotone boundary dynamics generate a unique interior equilibrium and burst in general plant-herbivore models

We investigate two general plant-herbivore models: The 1st model involves a single plant species that has an increasing population dynamics with a decreasing growth function, while the 2nd model has a Holling type III function as its plant’s population dynamics. One key feature of these two models is that the boundary dynamics generate a unique interior equilibrium. The interior equilibrium goe...

The dynamics of a stoichiometric plant-herbivore model and its discrete analog.

Stoichiometry-based models brought into sharp focus the importance of the nutritional quality of plant for herbivore-plant dynamics. Plant quality can dramatically affect the growth rate of the herbivores and may even lead to its extinction. These results stem from models continuous in time, which raises the question of how robust they are to time discretization. Discrete time can be more appro...

Evolution of nutrient uptake reveals a trade-off in the ecological stoichiometry of plant-herbivore interactions.

Nutrient limitation determines the primary production and species composition of many ecosystems. Here we apply an adaptive dynamics approach to investigate evolution of the ecological stoichiometry of primary producers and its implications for plant-herbivore interactions. The model predicts a trade-off between the competitive ability and grazing susceptibility of primary producers, driven by ...

Consequences of plant-herbivore coevolution on the dynamics and functioning of ecosystems.

The potential consequences of plant-herbivore coevolution for ecosystem functioning are investigated using a simple nutrient-limited ecosystem model in which plant and herbivore traits are subject to adaptive dynamics. Although the ecological model is very simple and always reaches a stable equilibrium in the absence of evolution, coevolution can generate a great diversity of dynamical behavior...