"Inferring intrinsic population growth rates and per capita interactions from ecological time-series"Nguyen, PhuongPredicting environmental changes to our changing world requires the determination of eco-evolutionary outcomes of species interactions, influencing the emergent properties of natural ecosystems. However, complicated experimental setups make it challenging to estimate the key parameters that govern the ecological and the evolutionary dynamics of these systems, namely per capita interactions between organisms and their intrinsic growth rates. Such experiments often require isolation of organisms from their natural communities, potentially rendering conclusions from experimental results of limited realism. Here, we provide a novel approach for inferring these key parameters directly from time-series data by using weighted multivariate multilinear regression on the per capita growth rates of populations. We validate our method on synthetic and empirical data, including both experimental and observational ones. In support of the validity of our approach, the inference of per capita interactions and intrinsic growth rates from experimental data revealed an allocative trade-off between grazing resistance and rapid growth rate in algae. Our approach therefore offers a robust means for inferring key ecological parameters and can be used in theoretical models to provide a mechanistic understanding of community dynamics without isolating organisms from a community context. |
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