Framework

A premise of this research is the acknowledgement that population dynamics, interactions, resource use and biodiversity vary in space and time, reflecting natural and anthropogenic drivers of change in, e.g., nutrient availability, temperature, light climate, connectivity, and pH. Consequently, our research is deeply embedded in general ecological frameworks which make general predictions on how species (interactions) respond to these changes and which effects these responses have on ecosystem processes. Consumer-resource interactions are analysed in the framework of Ecological Stoichiometry, which explains ecological phenomena based on the organism’s demand for multiple resources and the relative availability of these resources in the environment or their food. Its predictions range from intracellular composition of macromolecules to ecosystem properties (such as species composition) and processes (such as element cycling). Spatial dynamics are analysed in the framework of Metacommunity Ecology, where a metacommunity is defined as a set of local habitats (patches) connected by dispersal, such that local dynamics within patches (competition, consumption, mutualism) are affected by the interacting species being regionally transported by dispersal. Both consumer-resource dynamics and spatial dynamics lead to biodiversity patterns, which are analysed in a Biodiversity – Ecosystem Functioning  framework, where the efficiency of taking up resources, and transforming these into biomass production, depends on the complementarity and plasticity of traits in a community.