NEATS: A Network Economics Approach to Trophic Systems

The main principle of the economic approach to a trophic system we propose here lies in assuming that there is a transfer of food along a path between a prey and a predator if, for the predator, the benefits are greater than costs of predation on this path. Conversely, if the costs exceed the benefits, there are no flows. This trade-off, considered all along the food chains of an ecosystem, together with ecological processes (assimilation, somatic maintenance) results in a model coupling mass balance equations (biological constraints) and complementarity principles (Walras’ law). Here is the core of the Network Economics Approach to Trophic Systems (NEATS).