When are bacteria really gazelles? Comparing patchy ecologies with dimensionless numbers.
| Title: | When are bacteria really gazelles? Comparing patchy ecologies with dimensionless numbers. |
|---|---|
| Authors: | Urmy SS; Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Moss Landing, California, USA.; Cramer AN; School of the Environment, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA.; Rogers TL; NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Santa Cruz, California, USA.; Sullivan-Stack J; Department of Integrative Biology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA.; Schmidt M; Department of Microbiology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA.; Stewart SD; Cawthron Institute, Nelson, New Zealand.; Symons CC; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, California, USA. |
| Source: | Ecology letters [Ecol Lett] 2022 May; Vol. 25 (5), pp. 1323-1341. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Mar 22. |
| Publication Type: | Journal Article; Review |
| Language: | English |
| Journal Info: | Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 101121949 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1461-0248 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 1461023X NLM ISO Abbreviation: Ecol Lett Subsets: MEDLINE |
| Imprint Name(s): | Publication: Oxford, UK : Blackwell Publishing; Original Publication: Oxford, UK : [Paris, France] : Blackwell Science ; Centre national de la recherche scientifique, c1998- |
| MeSH Terms: | Antelopes* ; Ecosystem*; Animals ; Bacteria |
| Abstract: | From micro to planetary scales, spatial heterogeneity-patchiness-is ubiquitous in ecosystems, defining the environments in which organisms move and interact. However, most large-scale models still use spatially averaged 'mean fields' to represent natural populations, while fine-scale spatially explicit models are mostly restricted to particular organisms or systems. In a conceptual paper, Grünbaum (2012, Interface Focus 2: 150-155) introduced a heuristic, based on three dimensionless ratios quantifying movement, reproduction and resource consumption, to characterise patchy ecological interactions and identify when mean-field assumptions are justifiable. We calculated these dimensionless numbers for 33 interactions between consumers and their resource patches in terrestrial, aquatic and aerial environments. Consumers ranged in size from bacteria to whales, and patches lasted from minutes to millennia, with separation scales from mm to hundreds of km. No interactions could be accurately represented by naive mean-field models, though 19 (58%) could be partially simplified by averaging out movement, reproductive or consumption dynamics. Clustering interactions by their non-dimensional ratios revealed several unexpected dynamic similarities. For example, bacterial Pseudoalteromonas exploit nutrient plumes similarly to Mongolian gazelles grazing on ephemeral steppe vegetation. We argue that dimensional analysis is valuable for characterising ecological patchiness and can link widely different systems into a single quantitative framework.; (© 2022 The Authors. Ecology Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.) |
| References: | PLoS One. 2013;8(1):e53348. (PMID: 23301063); Nature. 1999 Oct 28;401(6756):911-4. (PMID: 10553906); Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Jan 7;117(1):479-485. (PMID: 31871191); FEMS Microbiol Ecol. 2003 May 1;44(1):79-87. (PMID: 19719653); Mol Microbiol. 2010 Apr;76(1):120-32. (PMID: 20199592); Bioinformatics. 2016 Sep 15;32(18):2847-9. (PMID: 27207943); Trends Ecol Evol. 1999 Sep;14(9):361-366. (PMID: 10441312); Interface Focus. 2012 Apr 6;2(2):150-5. (PMID: 23565330); Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Oct 13;117(41):25571-25579. (PMID: 32973087); Trends Ecol Evol. 2006 Apr;21(4):178-85. (PMID: 16701083); Ecol Lett. 2022 May;25(5):1323-1341. (PMID: 35315562); Nat Ecol Evol. 2020 Jan;4(1):82-90. (PMID: 31659309); Ecology. 2007 Aug;88(8):1962-9. (PMID: 17824427); Science. 2012 Nov 2;338(6107):628-33. (PMID: 23118182); Trends Ecol Evol. 2005 Jan;20(1):23-7. (PMID: 16701336); Sci Rep. 2019 Nov 21;9(1):17243. (PMID: 31754195); Theor Popul Biol. 2000 Nov;58(3):211-37. (PMID: 11120650); Nature. 1976 Jun 10;261(5560):459-67. (PMID: 934280); Environ Microbiol. 2018 Oct;20(10):3825-3835. (PMID: 30175444); Theor Popul Biol. 1976 Apr;9(2):129-36. (PMID: 1273796) |
| Grant Information: | 602015 Simons Foundation; OCE-1356192 National Science Foundation; OCE-1935796 National Science Foundation |
| Contributed Indexing: | Keywords: comparative ecology; dimensional analysis; interactions; model systems; patchiness; scale |
| Entry Date(s): | Date Created: 20220322 Date Completed: 20220427 Latest Revision: 20230918 |
| Update Code: | 20260130 |
| PubMed Central ID: | PMC9545138 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/ele.13987 |
| PMID: | 35315562 |
| Database: | MEDLINE |
Journal Article; Review