Consumers' active choice behaviour promotes coevolutionary units in antagonistic networks.

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Evolutionary Biology
• Theoretical Ecology

Background:

• Ecological interactions and networks are shaped by individual behavior and local context.
• Consumer choice of resources influences fitness and evolutionary dynamics.
• Mathematical models often simplify consumer behavior, overlooking individual decision-making.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of active consumer choice in structuring ecological communities.
• To model coevolutionary dynamics between consumers and resources with explicit individual traits.
• To determine how consumer behavior impacts the formation of interaction networks.

Main Methods:

• Utilized an individual-based model to simulate a multi-species antagonistic community.
• Incorporated explicit attack and defense traits for each individual.
• Modeled successful interaction probability based on trait-matching and active resource selection by consumers.

Main Results:

• Active consumer choice leads to the formation of "coevolutionary units"—groups with converging traits.
• Species interactions become restricted within these trait-based groups over time.
• Network structure is more sensitive to the parameters of active consumer choice than to selective pressure intensity.

Conclusions:

• Consumer active choice is a significant driver of ecological and evolutionary processes.
• Individual behavior plays a crucial role in shaping the structure of interacting communities.
• The study emphasizes the importance of incorporating behavioral ecology into evolutionary models.