In particular, I'm looking for differences between species in demography, population persistence, fecundity, general fitness, and any biological adaptations to generalism or specialism that are relevant. I have been searching online but hardly found anything significant. There is quite a lot on intraspecific variation, and some general models but not much more.
Apologies in advance if this post seems self-serving. I wrote two papers that are potentially relevant to your query. The first studies the evolution of resource use for a consumer faced with two resources that are either hemi-essential, substitutable, or complementary. In addition to providing conditions for persistence, it shows when one expects diet generalism or specialism to evolve. The link to this paper is
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10690924_The_evolution_of_resource_use
The other papers considers to what extent diet specialists versus generalists can produce a keystone effect i.e. mediate coexistence of competing resource species. The main punch lines are that (1) a single specialist can mediate coexistence when their is a dominance hierarchy in the resource species, (2) it requires two specialists to mediate coexistence of two founder controlled resource species, (3) a single generalist can always mediate coexistence. The link to this one is
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227077872_Generalist_and_specialist_predators_that_mediate_permanence_in_ecological_communities
Hopefully something here (or in the references) will be useful.
Cheers, Sebastian
Article The Evolution of Resource Use
Article Generalist and specialist predators that mediate permanence ...
Dear Maxim and Sebastian, your advices are quite helpful, I can now proceed with my paper. Sebastian could you please provide the link to the paper you suggest
many thanks
You might want to take a look at this old paper of ours, which deals specifically with this question from a plant and pollinator perspective:
Waser, N.M., Chittka, L., Price, M.V., Williams, N. & Ollerton, J. (1996) Generalization in pollination systems, and why it matters. Ecology 77: 1043-1060.
Regards,
Jeff
Hey Marcin,
Specialists are supposedly more efficient than generalists from a network point of view. The down side of specialists is that they may decrease food web stability. The first references are to journal articles that talk about the role of generalists and specialists in food web stability. The last two introduce methods of measuring food web development and suggest that as food webs develop so does specialization. However development and specialization is limited to an extent by the need for energy pathway redundancy (ie generalization), thus a balance between efficiency and redundancy is needed for the survival of a system. Furthermore, the last article suggests that food webs tend to exist within a "window of vitality" in the trade off between efficiency and stability.
McCann, K., Hastings, A., & Huxel, G. R. (1998). Weak trophic interactions and the balance of nature. Nature, 395(6704), 794-798.
Montoya, J. M., Pimm, S. L., & Solé, R. V. (2006). Ecological networks and their fragility. Nature, 442(7100), 259-264.
Ulanowicz, R. E. (1997). Ecology, the ascendent perspective: Robert E. Ulanowicz. Columbia University Press.
Ulanowicz, R. E. (2009). The dual nature of ecosystem dynamics. Ecological modelling, 220(16), 1886-1892.
Hope this helps,
Adam
Thanks Adam for suggestions, I will use them when MS come back from reviewers.
bye bye
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