title: The Multidimensional Nutritional Niche.
abstract: The dietary generalist-specialist distinction plays a pivotal role in theoretical and applied ecology, conservation, invasion biology, and evolution and yet the concept remains poorly characterised. Diets, which are commonly used to define niche breadth, are almost exclusively considered in terms of foods, with little regard for the mixtures of nutrients and other compounds they contain. We use nutritional geometry (NG) to integrate nutrition with food-level approaches to the dietary niche and illustrate the application of our framework in the important context of invasion biology. We use an example that involves a model with four hypothetical nonexclusive scenarios. We additionally show how this approach can provide fresh theoretical insight into the ways nutrition and food choices impact trait evolution and trophic interactions.
authors.affiliation: Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; School of Biological Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Electronic address: g.machovsky@sydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Gabriel E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Machovsky-Capuska
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Alistair M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Senior
authors.affiliation: Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Simpson
authors.affiliation: Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; School of Biological Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Raubenheimer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004032:Diet; D004463:Ecology; D005502:Food; D058865:Introduced Species; D008962:Models, Theoretical