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How phenological (a-)synchrony can alter consumer-resource dynamics

Frithjof Lutscher, University of Ottawa
Tuesday January 13, 12-1pm
Zoom Link:听
In Person: 550 Sherbrooke, Room 189

Abstract:听The dynamics of a consumer and its resource depend on how strongly the two interact, which, in turn, depends on the relative timing of their respective life cycles (phenology). There is clear empirical evidence that climate change alters the timing of important life-cycle events, such as flowering or hibernation, but less so about the consequences of this change for the dynamics of the species involved. We studied a semi-discrete dynamical system model for one or more specialist consumers and their resource. Consumers reproduce only once per year, resources continuously during their growing season. Each species has its own winter resting period, during which it does not interact with the other. Such a situation is quite common in plant-herbivore systems. We say that two species are in phenological synchrony when their resting and growing seasons are perfectly aligned. We used this model to explore various questions, from the long-standing challenge of how several consumer species can coexist on a single resource, to recent ones such as how climate change will affect the community composition of competing consumers via changes in season length and synchrony. We also study whether and under which conditions synchrony between a consumer and its resource is beneficial to the consumer. We thereby reconcile the old theoretical tenet that perfect synchrony should be best for the consumer with newer simulation results that some level of asynchrony is better.