In our simulation of herbivores feeding in a farm pasture, we treated each species as if it were foraging all by itself. Of course, in real ecosystems, there are many different herbivores, some of which compete with one another for food. If both sheep and grasshoppers were feeding in a pasture, how do you think the grasshoppers would affect sheep?

Question

Ray Fields

Biology

9 September, 19:51

In our simulation of herbivores feeding in a farm pasture, we treated each species as if it were foraging all by itself. Of course, in real ecosystems, there are many different herbivores, some of which compete with one another for food. If both sheep and grasshoppers were feeding in a pasture, how do you think the grasshoppers would affect sheep?

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Answers (1)

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Darrell Hatfield · Answer 1

The grasshoppers affect the amount of an available resource (i. e., food availability for sheep consumption).

Explanation:

Competition for limited resources (in this case, farm pasture) has important effects on the fitness of populations and species. In nature, it even may lead to extinction or declination in the number of both groups. In consequence, any type of competition interaction is considered to be critical and therefore should be taken into account when designing models that enables to analyze the dynamics of populations and/or species.