title: Evolving nutritional strategies in the presence of competition: a geometric agent-based model.
abstract: Access to nutrients is a key factor governing development, reproduction and ultimately fitness. Within social groups, contest-competition can fundamentally affect nutrient access, potentially leading to reproductive asymmetry among individuals. Previously, agent-based models have been combined with the Geometric Framework of nutrition to provide insight into how nutrition and social interactions affect one another. Here, we expand this modelling approach by incorporating evolutionary algorithms to explore how contest-competition over nutrient acquisition might affect the evolution of animal nutritional strategies. Specifically, we model tolerance of nutrient excesses and deficits when ingesting nutritionally imbalanced foods, which we term 'nutritional latitude'; a higher degree of nutritional latitude constitutes a higher tolerance of nutritional excess and deficit. Our results indicate that a transition between two alternative strategies occurs at moderate to high levels of competition. When competition is low, individuals display a low level of nutritional latitude and regularly switch foods in search of an optimum. When food is scarce and contest-competition is intense, high nutritional latitude appears optimal, and individuals continue to consume an imbalanced food for longer periods before attempting to switch to an alternative. However, the relative balance of nutrients within available foods also strongly influences at what levels of competition, if any, transitions between these two strategies occur. Our models imply that competition combined with reproductive skew in social groups can play a role in the evolution of diet breadth. We discuss how the integration of agent-based, nutritional and evolutionary modelling may be applied in future studies to further understand the evolution of nutritional strategies across social and ecological contexts.
authors: Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; School of Biological Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors: Alistair M
authors: AM
authors: Senior
authors: School of Information Technologies, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors: Michael A
authors: MA
authors: Charleston
authors: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Toulouse, France; Université Paul Sabatier (UPS), Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Toulouse, France.
authors: Mathieu
authors: M
authors: Lihoreau
authors: Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; School of Biological Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide South Australia, Australia.
authors: Camille
authors: C
authors: Buhl
authors: Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; School of Biological Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors: David
authors: D
authors: Raubenheimer
authors: Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; School of Biological Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors: Stephen J
authors: SJ
authors: Simpson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003163:Competitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D019295:Computational Biology; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007313:Insecta; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D009747:Nutritional Physiological Phenomena / Q000502:physiology*