2024/10/11 by Jawad Sakarchi, Rachel M. Germain · 1 voice · 7 citations
Social Sciences · #Biology #Computer science #Ecology #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies #Geography #Resource (disambiguation)
paper · doi:10.1086/733516
published in The American Naturalist 205(3), 306-326 (University of Chicago Press)
openalex publication_date 2024/10/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Recent developments in competition theory—namely, modern coexistence theory (MCT)—have aided empiricists in formulating tests of species persistence, coexistence, and evolution from simple to complex community settings. However, the parameters used to predict competitive outcomes, such as interaction coefficients, invasion growth rates, and stabilizing differences, remain biologically opaque, making findings difficult to generalize across ecological settings. This article is structured around five goals toward clarifying MCT by first making a case for the modern-day utility of MacArthur’s consumer-resource model, a model with surprising complexity and depth: (i) to describe the model in uniquely accessible language, deciphering the mathematics toward cultivating deeper biological intuition about competition’s inner workings regardless of what empirical toolkit one uses; (ii) to provide translation between biological mechanisms from MacArthur’s model and parameters used to predict coexistence in MCT; (iii) to make explicit important but understated assumptions of MacArthur’s model in plain terms; (iv) to provide empirical recommendations; and (v) to examine how key ecological concepts (e.g., r/K-selection) can be understood with renewed clarity through MacArthur’s lens. We end by highlighting opportunities to explore mechanisms in tandem with MCT and to compare and translate results across ecological currencies toward a more unified ecological science.