Community Structure, Population Control, and Competition

1960/11/01 by Nelson G. Hairston, Frederick E. Smith, Lawrence B. Slobodkin · 3,478 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies #Biology #Community #Community structure #Competition (biology) #Decomposer #Demography #Ecology #Ecosystem #Evolution and Paleontology Studies #Habitat #Herbivore #Interspecific competition #Population #Predation #Predator #Trophic cascade #Trophic level #Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

paper · doi:10.1086/282146

published in The American Naturalist 94(879), 421-425 (University of Chicago Press)

openalex publication_date 1960/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

In summary, then, our general conclusions are: (1) Populations of producers, carnivores, and decomposers are limited by their respective resources in the classical density-dependent fashion. (2) Interspecific competition must necessarily exist among the members of each of these three trophic levels. (3) Herbivores are seldom food-limited, appear most often to be predator-limited, and therefore are not likely to compete for common resources.

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