A network-based measure of functional diversity in food webs

Lin, Wenzhi; Lai, Shu-Mei; Davis, Andrew; Liu, Wei-Chung; Jordán, Ferenc

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2022.0183

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Nevertheless, the lack of evidence for contemporary human pressure on food web connectance is not necessarily inconsistent with the human-induced loss of functional diversity at some TEAM sites. Connectance declines significantly with the diversity of species interactions within food webs because there is more dissimilarity in species interactions when food webs are sparsely connected 82 . Interaction diversity, however, is not significantly correlated with conventional functional diversity indices, such as functional richness, evenness, dispersion or Rao’s Q 82 , which suggests that connectance is likely not strongly correlated with conventional functional diversity indices either.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Connectance declines significantly with the diversity of species interactions within food webs because there is more dissimilarity in species interactions when food webs are sparsely connected 82 . Interaction diversity, however, is not significantly correlated with conventional functional diversity indices, such as functional richness, evenness, dispersion or Rao’s Q 82 , which suggests that connectance is likely not strongly correlated with conventional functional diversity indices either. The relationship between food web structure and functional diversity has only recently begun to be investigated formally and more work integrating trait-based approaches with food web networks is needed 83 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Geographic differences in body size distributions underlie food web connectance of tropical forest mammals

Beaudrot,

Acevedo,

Gorczynski

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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Understanding variation in food web structure over large spatial scales is an emerging research agenda in food web ecology. The density of predator–prey links in a food web (i.e., connectance) is a key measure of network complexity that describes the mean proportional dietary breadth of species within a food web. Connectance is a critical component of food web robustness to species loss: food webs with lower connectance have been shown to be more susceptible to secondary extinctions. Identifying geographic variation in food web connectance and its drivers may provide insight into community robustness to species loss. We investigated the food web connectance of ground-dwelling tropical forest mammal communities in multiple biogeographic regions to test for differences among regions in food web connectance and to test three potential drivers: primary productivity, contemporary anthropogenic pressure, and variation in mammal body mass distributions reflective of historical extinctions. Mammal communities from fifteen protected forests throughout the Neo-, Afro-, and Asian tropics were identified from systematic camera trap arrays. Predator–prey interaction data were collected from published literature, and we calculated connectance for each community as the number of observed predator–prey links relative to the number of possible predator–prey links. We used generalized linear models to test for differences among regions and to identify the site level characteristics that best predicted connectance. We found that mammal food web connectance varied significantly among continents and that body size range was the only significant predictor. More possible predator–prey links were observed in communities with smaller ranges in body size and therefore sites with smaller body size ranges had higher mean proportional dietary breadth. Specifically, mammal communities in the Neotropics and in Madagascar had significantly higher connectance than mammal communities in Africa. This geographic variation in contemporary mammalian food web structure may be the product of historical extinctions in the Late Quaternary, which led to greater losses of large-bodied species in the Neotropics and Madagascar thus contributing to higher average proportional dietary breadth among the remaining smaller bodied species in these regions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographic differences in body size distributions underlie food web connectance of tropical forest mammals

Beaudrot,

Acevedo,

Gorczynski

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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“…of grazing on the rodent community stability may come from the response of species or functional groups with different responsiveness to disturbances (de Valpine, 2000). Life history characteristics are often used as the main indicators of community functional (Kirwan et al, 2009;Rodríguez and Ojeda, 2014;Lin et al, 2022). Functional stability was one of the important aspects of stability in ecological communities (Huelsmann and Ackermann, 2022).…”

Section: Stability and Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Functional and compositional stabilities were two aspects of stability in ecological communities (Huelsmann and Ackermann, 2022). In previous studies, life history characteristics are often used as the main indicators of community functional (Kirwan et al, 2009;Rodríguez and Ojeda, 2014;Lin et al, 2022). Life history theory (Stearns, 1992) predicts that certain environments favor specific suites of traits.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of grazing and reclamation on rodent community stability in the Alxa desert

Yuan

Zhang

et al. 2023

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Ecosystem stability has been of increasing interest in the past several decades as it helps predict the consequences of anthropogenic disturbances on ecosystems. A wild rodent community under reclamation and different grazing disturbances in the Alxa Desert was investigated using live trapping from 2006 to 2011. We studied the rodent community composition, community diversity, and variability of different life history strategies. These results showed that reclamation reduced rodent community stability by increasing temporal variability of community, reducing rodent community resistance as shown by decreasing dominance of KSS strategists, and increased the resistance variability of the rodent community by increasing the variability of abundance and richness for KSS strategists. Grazing reduced rodent community resilience by reducing the dominance of rRF strategists, and increased the resilience variability of the rodent community by increasing the variability of abundance and richness for rRF strategists. Those results may answer the three ecological questions about how ecosystems respond to disturbances from a diversity perspective. The ecosystems with intermediate disturbance are more stable, in other words, with higher resistance and resilience. The increase of KSS strategists means the increase of resistance of the community. The increase of rRF strategists means the increase of community resilience.

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“…Functional diversity can be used to quantify the species composition based on traits in ecosystems and the degree to which they influence ecosystems (Lin et al, 2022). Methods based on functional traits (Mouillot et al, 2013) can explain different aspects of the community from the various functional strategies of the species (Kirwan et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of overgrazing on the functional diversity of rodents in desert areas

Zhu,

Li,

et al. 2024

Ecology and Evolution

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Environmental stressors and disturbances can cause changes in an ecosystem's community structure, which can be reflected in its functional diversity. As grazing intensity increases, this causes changes in the environment that inevitably lead to changes in the community structure, which can especially affect rodents due to their sensitivity to the environment. The effects of grazing prohibition and overgrazing on the functional diversity of desert rodent communities in Alxa were studied in April, July, and October of 2018–2020. The trap‐day method was used to study rodent communities in disturbed habitats. Five functional traits were selected and quantified: nutrition, life history, physiology, morphology, and activity rhythm. The results showed that: (1) The species composition of rodent communities in the Alxa Desert in spring and autumn was significantly correlated with the functional traits of the hibernation, reproductive cycle, and feeding habits. The species composition in the summer was only significantly correlated with the functional traits of reproductive cycle and diet. (2) The effects of overgrazing on the functional diversity of rodents in desert areas have significant temporal and spatial characteristics. (3) In spring and summer, overgrazing made the Functional Richness index of the rodent community lower than that of areas where grazing is prohibited, but the Functional Evenness index was higher than that of grazing‐prohibition areas. In autumn, overgrazing increased the Functional Richness index of the rodent community and decreased the Functional Evenness index. The Functional Divergence index was higher in overgrazing areas than in grazing‐prohibited ones. These results suggest that, in spring and summer, overgrazing reduced the ecological space utilization ability of rodent communities; however, the impact on the degree of utilization of community resources is more comprehensive. In autumn, overgrazing increases the ability of rodent communities to use ecological space but reduces resource efficiency. Overgrazing makes the niche differentiation of rodent communities higher, the degree of overlap lower, and the competition between species weaker. Therefore, overgrazing will affect the functional diversity of the community through the utilization of ecological space, resource utilization, interspecific competition, and niche.

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A network-based measure of functional diversity in food webs

Cited by 11 publications

References 42 publications

Geographic differences in body size distributions underlie food web connectance of tropical forest mammals

Geographic differences in body size distributions underlie food web connectance of tropical forest mammals

The effect of grazing and reclamation on rodent community stability in the Alxa desert

Effects of overgrazing on the functional diversity of rodents in desert areas

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