Importance of interactions between food quality, quantity, and gut transit time on consumer feeding, growth, and trophic dynamics

Mitra, Aditee ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5572-9331 and Flynn, Kevin J. 2007. Importance of interactions between food quality, quantity, and gut transit time on consumer feeding, growth, and trophic dynamics. American Naturalist 169 (5) , pp. 632-646. 10.1086/513187

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Abstract

Ingestion kinetics of animals are controlled by both external food availability and feedback from the quantity of material already within the gut. The latter varies with gut transit time (GTT) and digestion of the food. Ingestion, assimilation efficiency, and thus, growth dynamics are not related in a simple fashion. For the first time, the important linkage between these processes and GTT is demonstrated; this is achieved using a biomass‐based, mechanistic multinutrient model fitted to experimental data for zooplankton growth dynamics when presented with food items of varying quality (stoichiometric composition) or quantity. The results show that trophic transfer dynamics will vary greatly between the extremes of feeding on low‐quantity/high‐quality versus high‐quantity/low‐quality food; these conditions are likely to occur in nature. Descriptions of consumer behavior that assume a constant relationship between the kinetics of grazing and growth irrespective of food quality and/or quantity, with little or no recognition of the combined importance of these factors on consumer behavior, may seriously misrepresent consumer activity in dynamic situations.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Earth and Environmental Sciences
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
ISSN:	0003-0147
Date of Acceptance:	2 October 2006
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2022 09:37
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/129717

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