Exploring the multi-scale ecological consequences of stoichiometric imbalance using an agent-based modeling approach

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60077344%3A_____%2F25%3A00637218" target="_blank" >RIV/60077344:_____/25:00637218 - isvavai.cz</a>

Alternative codes found

RIV/00216208:11310/25:10509199

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2025.1505145/full" target="_blank" >https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2025.1505145/full</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2025.1505145" target="_blank" >10.3389/fevo.2025.1505145</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Exploring the multi-scale ecological consequences of stoichiometric imbalance using an agent-based modeling approach

Original language description

Despite living in a nutritionally heterogeneous world, consumers maintain a relatively strict elemental homeostasis. As a result, consumers often face an elemental imbalance between what they ingest and what is required for their growth, maintenance, and reproduction. Here, we attempt to unite concepts from three complementary frameworks used to study these imbalances-Ecological Stoichiometry Theory (EST), Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) theory, and Nutritional Geometry (NG)-within an agent-based modelling (ABM) approach. Specifically, we developed a two-reserve DEB model within the ABM that tracks elemental intake, storage, and release in individual consumers across space and time, all while integrating energetic trade-offs and simulating behavioral responses to stoichiometric mismatch. This approach provides a platform to study the effects of stoichiometric imbalances on populations with individuals that have heterogeneous traits, and on feedbacks between consumer populations and environmental nutrient cycling. We demonstrate the utility of this approach through a case study of snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) balancing carbon and nitrogen intake in a nitrogen-limited landscape. Our case study demonstrates how heterogeneity in resource stoichiometry, and the ability for consumers to respond to such heterogeneity under nutrient limitation, can have variable effects on population dynamics and consumer nutrient cycling. Ultimately, our ABM is able to capture how stoichiometric mismatches faced at the individual level can drive emergent ecological outcomes through the collective impacts on the population. While the intricacy of our model ensures ample room for further improvements and expansions, we hope this user-friendly tool will enable practitioners of EST, DEB, and NG to test new hypotheses, guide experimental and field research, and advance theoretical development.

Czech name

—

Czech description

—

Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10618 - Ecology

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

ISSN

2296-701X

e-ISSN

2296-701X

Volume of the periodical

13

Issue of the periodical within the volume

June

Country of publishing house

CH - SWITZERLAND

Number of pages

19

Pages from-to

1505145

UT code for WoS article

001518107500001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-105009327065