A Model for Tropic Interaction

Abstract

A nonlinear function general enough to include the effects of feeding saturation and intraspecific consumer interference is used to represent the transfer of material or energy from one trophic level to another. The function agrees with some recent experimental data on feeding rates. A model using this feeding rate function is subjected to equilibrium and stability analyses to ascertain its mathematical implications. The anaylses lead to several observations; for example, increases in maximum feeding rate may, under certain circumstances; result in decreases in consumer population and mutal interference between consumers is a major stabilizing factor in a nonlinear system. The analyses also suggest that realistic classes of consumer—resource models exist which do not obey Kolmogorov's Criteria but are nevertheless globally stable.