Department of Natural Ecology Resource and Management, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA.
Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Trends Ecol Evol. 2021 Feb;36(2):164-173. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2020.10.007. Epub 2020 Oct 28.
Carrying capacity is a key concept in ecology. A body of theory, based on the logistic equation, has extended predictions of carrying capacity to spatially distributed, dispersing populations. However, this theory has only recently been tested empirically. The experimental results disagree with some theoretical predictions of when they are extended to a population dispersing randomly in a two-patch system. However, they are consistent with a mechanistic model of consumption on an exploitable resource (consumer-resource model). We argue that carrying capacity, defined as the total equilibrium population, is not a fundamental property of ecological systems, at least in the context of spatial heterogeneity. Instead, it is an emergent property that depends on the population's intrinsic growth and dispersal rates.
承载能力是生态学中的一个关键概念。基于 logistic 方程的理论体系已经将承载能力的预测扩展到了空间分布的扩散种群。然而，直到最近，该理论才得到了实证检验。实验结果与一些理论预测不一致，这些预测是将其扩展到在两个斑块系统中随机扩散的种群时得出的。但是，这些结果与可利用资源上的消耗的机制模型（消费者-资源模型）一致。我们认为，承载能力（定义为总平衡种群）不是生态系统的基本特性，至少在空间异质性的背景下不是。相反，它是一种依赖于种群内在增长率和扩散率的涌现特性。
