In theoretical ecology and nonlinear dynamics, consumer-resource models (CRMs) are a class of ecological models in which a community of consumer species compete for a common pool of resources. Instead of species interacting directly, all species-species interactions are mediated through resource dynamics. Consumer-resource models have served as fundamental tools in the quantitative development of theories of niche construction, coexistence, and biological diversity. These models can be interpreted as a quantitative description of a single trophic level.[1][2]
A general consumer-resource model consists of M resources whose abundances are and S consumer species whose populations are . A general consumer-resource model is described by the system of coupled ordinary differential equations,
where , depending only on resource abundances, is the per-capita growth rate of species , and is the growth rate of resource . An essential feature of CRMs is that species growth rates and populations are mediated through resources and there are no explicit species-species interactions. Through resource interactions, there are emergent inter-species interactions.
Originally introduced by Robert H. MacArthur[3] and Richard Levins,[4] consumer-resource models have found success in formalizing ecological principles and modeling experiments involving microbial ecosystems.[5][6]