title: Modelling nutritional interactions: from individuals to communities.
abstract: Nutrient acquisition is a major context for ecological interactions among species but ecologists and nutritionists have developed theory in isolation from each other. Developments in agent-based modelling, state-space modelling of nutrition and multi-scale modelling of landscape ecology provide the components for a new synthesis in nutritional ecology linking the nutritional biology of individual organisms to population- and community-level processes across multiple scales within an evolutionary context. We review the core elements for such a synthesis and set out the principles for a generic modelling framework that could be used to test specific ecological hypotheses.
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences and Centre for Mathematical Biology, The University of Sydney, Heydon-Laurence Building, A08, NSW 2006, Australia. stephen.simpson@bio.usyd.edu.au
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Simpson
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Raubenheimer
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Charleston
authors.forename: Fiona J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Clissold
mesh_terms: D000824:Animal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D000818:Animals; D020387:Food Chain; D008954:Models, Biological