Individual energetics scale up to community coexistence: Movement, metabolism and biodiversity dynamics in fragmented landscapes

Unraveling the intricate mechanisms that govern community coexistence remains a daunting challenge, particularly amidst ongoing environmental change. To understand the response of individual animals to environmental change, physiology and individual metabolism are often studied. However, this perspective is currently largely lacking in community ecology. We argue that the integration of individual metabolism into community theory can offer new insights into coexistence. We present the first individual-based metabolic community model for a terrestrial mammal community to simulate energy dynamics and home range behavior in different environments. Using this model, we investigate how ecologically similar species coexist and maintain their energy balance under food competition. Only if individuals of different species are able to balance their incoming and outgoing energy over the long-term will they be able to coexist. After thoroughly testing and validating the model against real-world pa..., In this study, we developed a novel dynamic individual-based metabolic simulation model for a mammal community. The model is based on allometric relationships and movement in home ranges, allowing for a variety of species. The model was thoroughly tested and validated using real-world patterns from the literature. An extensive model development description is available in the format of a TRACE document with the publication. We used the model to simulate scenarios of different habitat fragmentation and species presence (single species or community) and analyzed the resulting data., , # Individual energetics scale up to community coexistence: Movement, metabolism and biodiversity dynamics in fragmented landscapes

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4qrfj6qjf](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4qrfj6qjf)

We here provide the model code for our individual-based metabolic community model along with the resulting data for the simulated experiments and the code for producing the manuscript figures

## Description of the data and file structure

For a detailed description of the functioning of the simulation model, please refer to our TRACE document included with the publication. The model is provided as a Netlogo program (mibcom_paper.nlogo) and a Python program (mibcom_mesa.py). We used the model to first simulate the population of different species (characterized by their body mass, defined by \"specs-included\") alone in landscapes of differently fragmented habitats, and finally we simulated the community of species together in differently fragmented habitats (fragmentation defi...