Integrating models of competition for space with life history theory

Talk outline:

Resource based competition
- Incorporating facultative behavior
- Incorporating direct interference
Population level patterns and how to detect them
- Detecting competition from growth and mortality data
- "Self-thinning" in plants and ants
Integration with empirically-based model for ant colony life history
What's missing?
- Mortality costs
- Real geometry of foraging trails
- Intra-year dynamics of foraging
- Signalling and other information transfer

Assigned reading:
F.R. Adler. Self-thinning through local competition. Preprint.
F.R. Adler and D.M. Gordon. Evolution of colony life history and competition for space in seed-harvester ants. Unprint.