IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v439y2006i7072d10.1038_nature04526.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mechanisms for consumer diversity

Author

Listed:
  • Takehito Yoshida

    (Cornell University)

  • Laura E. Jones

    (Cornell University)

  • Stephen P. Ellner

    (Cornell University)

  • Nelson G. Hairston

    (Cornell University)

Abstract

Arising from: W. A. Nelson, E. McCauley & F. J. Wrona Nature 433, 413–417 (2005)10.1038/nature03212 ; Nelson et al. reply . A variety of mechanisms can theoretically produce competitive coexistence in nature1, making it hard to identify a single explanation for the maintenance of diversity in any particular system. Based on laboratory experiments with a consumer–resource system of crustacean Daphnia eating algae, Nelson et al.2 suggest that maintenance of genetic diversity in the consumer populations they studied depends only on the dynamics of the population structure of the consumer. We suggest that the differences in Daphnia genetic diversity that they find for different experimental treatments could equally be explained by a simple, well known mechanism: the number of coexisting competitors cannot exceed the number of shared resources3,4,5. Here we confirm this possibility by using a simple mathematical model and suggest that more than one mechanism may account for the maintenance of genetic diversity observed by Nelson et al. in their system.

Suggested Citation

  • Takehito Yoshida & Laura E. Jones & Stephen P. Ellner & Nelson G. Hairston, 2006. "Mechanisms for consumer diversity," Nature, Nature, vol. 439(7072), pages 1-2, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:439:y:2006:i:7072:d:10.1038_nature04526
    DOI: 10.1038/nature04526
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04526
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature04526?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:439:y:2006:i:7072:d:10.1038_nature04526. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.