PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #36: Animal Community Ecology.
Presiding: S. Simonson
Tuesday, August 6. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM. Mesquite Room, Radisson.

A model for the effect of climate on competition.

MITCHELL, WILLIAM^*,1, ¹ Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana

ABSTRACT- Although animal communities always occur in the context of a climate, the role of climate on community interactions has received scant attention. Here, I present a model that analyzes the effect of climate-driven metabolic maintenance cost on competitive interactions. In particular, I consider competition among species in a heterogeneous environment where species differ in their ability to find and utilize resources in different habitats, or seasons. This model extends and generalizes previous work (Mitchell 2000) that analyzed a model community structured by species differences in foraging cost across habitats. The present model predicts that lower maintenance cost increases the chance of species coexistence, makes animal communities more susceptible to invasion, and provides the opportunity for an evolutionary bifurcation (Geritz et al. 1998).

KEY WORDS: competition, climate, communities, evolutionary