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Complementary Resources; Generalist Herbivore; Trophic Complexity; Prey Diversity; Specialization; Growth; Plant; Omnivory; Quality; Models
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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Physiological Effects Of Diet Mixing On Consumer Fitness: A Meta-Analysis, Js Lefcheck, Ma Whalen, Tm Davenport, Jp Stone, Je Duffy
Physiological Effects Of Diet Mixing On Consumer Fitness: A Meta-Analysis, Js Lefcheck, Ma Whalen, Tm Davenport, Jp Stone, Je Duffy
VIMS Articles
The degree of dietary generalism among consumers has important consequences for population, community, and ecosystem processes, yet the effects on consumer fitness of mixing food types have not been examined comprehensively. We conducted a meta-analysis of 161 peer-reviewed studies reporting 493 experimental manipulations of prey diversity to test whether diet mixing enhances consumer fitness based on the intrinsic nutritional quality of foods and consumer physiology. Averaged across studies, mixed diets conferred significantly higher fitness than the average of single-species diets, but not the best single prey species. More than half of individual experiments, however, showed maximal growth and reproduction on …