Food web stability and weighted connectance: the complexity-stability debate revisited

Altena, Cassandra van; Hemerik, Lia; Ruiter, Peter C. de

doi:10.1007/s12080-015-0291-7

Cited by 57 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…On the same line, Thébault and Fontaine (2010) showed that stability of trophic networks is enhanced in weakly connected architectures. van Altena et al (2016) confirmed the role of weak interactions for stability of real food webs. However, given skewed distributions of Jacobian elements towards weak interactions, they found that stability was promoted by even distribution of fluxes over links, in contrast with de Ruiter et al (1995) and Rooney et al (2006) who emphasized the role of strong asymmetry.…”

Section: Strength Of Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…Following a different perspective, Haydon (2000) focused on communities constructed to be as stable as they could be, and show that communities built in this way require high levels of weighted connectance, in agreement with van Altena et al (2016). According to these studies, high stability requires high connectance, especially between weakly and strongly self-regulated (intraspecific competition) elements of the community.…”

Section: Weighted Connectancementioning

confidence: 73%

“…Only a recent study by van Altena et al (2016) started its use into the complexity-stability context, although they found that there is no relationship between food web stability and unweighted connectance and that a high level of weighted connectance stabilizes food webs. Following a different perspective, Haydon (2000) focused on communities constructed to be as stable as they could be, and show that communities built in this way require high levels of weighted connectance, in agreement with van Altena et al (2016).…”

Section: Weighted Connectancementioning

confidence: 99%

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Complexity and stability of ecological networks: a review of the theory

et al. 2018

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Our planet is changing at paces never observed before. Species extinction is happening at faster rates than ever, greatly exceeding the five mass extinctions in the fossil record. Nevertheless, our lives are strongly based on services provided by ecosystems, thus the responses to global change of our natural heritage are of immediate concern. Understanding the relationship between complexity and stability of ecosystems is of key importance for the maintenance of the balance of human growth and the conservation of all the natural services that ecosystems provide. Mathematical network models can be used to simplify the vast complexity of the real world, to formally describe and investigate ecological phenomena, and to understand ecosystems propensity of returning to its functioning regime after a stress or a perturbation. The use of ecological-network models to study the relationship between complexity and stability of natural ecosystems is the focus of this review. The concept of ecological networks and their characteristics are first introduced, followed by central and occasionally contrasting definitions of complexity and stability. The literature on the relationship between complexity and stability in different types of models and in real ecosystems is then reviewed, highlighting the theoretical debate and the lack of consensual agreement. The summary of the importance of this line of research for the successful management and conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services concludes the review.

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Section: Strength Of Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 71%

Section: Weighted Connectancementioning

confidence: 73%

Section: Weighted Connectancementioning

confidence: 99%

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Complexity and stability of ecological networks: a review of the theory

et al. 2018

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“…Here, nodes, representing constituent taxa, were ordered along the vertical axis of the webs using respective trophic levels which we calculated with the NetIndices *1.4.4 statistical package (Kones et al ). We summarized all five webs with network topology indices representing ecologically relevant characteristics of their structure: (1) connectance (i.e., measure of overall complexity reflected in fraction of realized links over total possible links; Dunne et al a ); (2) maximum trophic level (i.e., measure of vertical complexity reflected in the highest trophic level occupied by a consumer in the food web; Digel et al ); (3) mean index of omnivory (i.e., measure of vertical complexity represented by average variation in trophic levels of prey items consumed by all heterotrophic taxa; Thompson et al ); (4) mean trophic level (i.e., measure of vertical distribution of taxa in the food web reflected in the average trophic level; Digel et al ); and (5) Gini's coefficient (i.e., measure of evenness in the distribution of trophic interaction strengths with upper and lower limits of zero and one, respectively, where a value of zero reflects perfect equivalence of interaction strength among links in the food web; van Altena et al ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bottom‐up influences on tropical freshwater food web structure support the “environmental filtering” hypothesis

Liew

Jardine

Lim

et al. 2018

Limnology & Oceanography

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Studies of ecosystem functions are gaining traction in the scientific community along with a growing consensus that losses in ecosystem functions have widespread consequences. Food webs, which are networks comprising all trophic interactions (represented by links) between taxa present in a community (represented by nodes), are important aspects of ecosystem functioning, yet a clear understanding of the factors and mechanisms influencing their assembly and structure is lacking. In our study, we addressed this fundamental question by investigating the respective roles of (1) environmental filtering and (2) biotic filtering, in governing food web structure. We did this by assessing the relationship between the network structure of five high‐resolution empirical tropical food webs and associated environmental and biotic covariates. Our data suggest that only environmental filtering is important in shaping food webs. Further, we found that the underlying ecological mechanism is a function of bottom‐up influences comprising resource levels, and to a lesser degree, resource type (i.e., terrestrial organic matter) available. Specifically, our data suggest high‐nutrient environments favor greater food web complexity. In the general context of community assembly, our findings add to existing knowledge of the process by demonstrating that environmental conditions previously shown to influence species assemblages can also drive trends in prevailing species interactions.

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“…2015; Neutel & Thorne, 2014;Neutel et al, 2002Neutel et al, , 2007. Various studies have suggested alternative connectance measures which incorporate the strength of interactions (Banašek-Richter et al, 2009;Bersier et al, 2002;Ulanowicz, 1997;Van Altena, Hemerik, & de Ruiter, 2016). Furthermore, it has been argued that in order to understand community stability, we need to look at the feedback structure formed by the interactions (Levins, 1974) and quantify critical feedback loops (Neutel et al, 2002).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond connectedness: why pairwise metrics cannot capture community stability

Neutel

Thorne

2016

Ecology and Evolution

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The connectedness of species in a trophic web has long been a key structural characteristic for both theoreticians and empiricists in their understanding of community stability. In the past decades, there has been a shift from focussing on determining the number of interactions to taking into account their relative strengths. The question is: How do the strengths of the interactions determine the stability of a community? Recently, a metric has been proposed which compares the stability of observed communities in terms of the strength of three‐ and two‐link feedback loops (cycles of interaction strengths). However, it has also been suggested that we do not need to go beyond the pairwise structure of interactions to capture stability. Here, we directly compare the performance of the feedback and pairwise metrics. Using observed food‐web structures, we show that the pairwise metric does not work as a comparator of stability and is many orders of magnitude away from the actual stability values. We argue that metrics based on pairwise‐strength information cannot capture the complex organization of strong and weak links in a community, which is essential for system stability.

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Food web stability and weighted connectance: the complexity-stability debate revisited

Cited by 57 publications

References 35 publications

Complexity and stability of ecological networks: a review of the theory

Complexity and stability of ecological networks: a review of the theory

Bottom‐up influences on tropical freshwater food web structure support the “environmental filtering” hypothesis

Beyond connectedness: why pairwise metrics cannot capture community stability

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