Understanding the interactions in resource limitations is a crucial challenge for ecological sciences. Though the concept of co-limitation (i.e. a simultaneous limitation by multiple nutrients) has been successfully applied to describe nutrient-limited growth responses of plants, this concept has been poorly applied to the nutrient limited growth of animals. In my presentation I will give some insights in the concept of co-limitation, its different facets, in particular to differences between multiple substitutable and multiple essential resources, as well as in its applicability to experiments with aquatic herbivore species.

Keywords: Co-limitation; Resource; Essential; Consumer

Biography: Alexander Wacker has studied Biology at the University of Constance in Germany. He was working on food quality aspects of aquatic invertebrate species during his doctoral thesis. At the present, he works at the University of Potsdam in Germany. His focus is on experimental studies and modelling of chemical, mechanistic and functional regularities in food webs, in particular he is interested in the regulation at the primary-producer interface.