Stabilization of chaotic and non-permanent food-web dynamics

Williams, Rich; Martinez, Neo D.

doi:10.1140/epjb/e2004-00122-1

Cited by 175 publications

(225 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…We therefore kept their values constant through all simulations and fixed them at μ i = μ = 0.05 and β i = β = 0.4. Due to the intraspecific competition, basal species that feed exclusively on the resources are primary producers with logistic growth, in agreement with other authors (Williams and Martinez, 2004). With our choice of parameters, interaction rates of species on the lower trophic levels, which had biomasses of the order of 1, were in the saturating regime when Holling type II functional responses were used.…”

Section: Holling Type IIsupporting

confidence: 86%

Positive complexity–stability relations in food web models without foraging adaptation

Kartascheff

Guill

Drossel

2009

Journal of Theoretical Biology

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May's local stability analysis of random food web models showed that increasing network complexity leads to decreasing stability, a result that is contradictory to earlier empirical findings. Since this seminal work, research of complexity-stability relations became one of the most challenging issues in theoretical ecology. We investigate conditions for positive complexity-stability relations in the niche, cascade, nested hierarchy, and random models by evaluating the network robustness, i.e. the fraction of surviving species after population dynamics. We find that positive relations between robustness and complexity can be obtained when resources are large, Holling II functional response is used and interaction strengths are weighted with the number of prey species, in order to take foraging efforts into account. In order to obtain these results, no foraging dynamics needs to be included. However, the niche model does not show positive complexity-stability relations under these conditions. By comparing to empirical food-web data, we show that the niche model has unrealistic distributions of predator numbers. When this distribution is randomized, positive complexity-stability relations can be found also in the niche model.

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Section: Holling Type IIsupporting

confidence: 86%

Positive complexity–stability relations in food web models without foraging adaptation

Kartascheff

Guill

Drossel

2009

Journal of Theoretical Biology

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“…Such models can now simulate the biomass dynamics of 50 or more interacting species. This means that it is possible to model how factors such as the functional responses in consumer-resource interactions [33], adaptive consumer behaviour [34], and body-size distributions across species [35] influence biodiversity in complex communities. For example, in multi-trophic level food webs where coexistence of primary producers is strongly limited by competition for abiotic resources, dynamic models demonstrated that top-down control is necessary to prevent competitive exclusion and thus species loss [35].…”

Section: Intervalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Food webs: reconciling the structure and function of biodiversity

Thompson

Brose

Dunne

et al. 2012

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

587

500

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The global biodiversity crisis concerns not only unprecedented loss of species within communities, but also related consequences for ecosystem function. Community ecology focuses on patterns of species richness and community composition, whereas ecosystem ecology focuses on fluxes of energy and materials. Food webs provide a quantitative framework to combine these approaches and unify the study of biodiversity and ecosystem function. We summarise the progression of foodweb ecology and the challenges in using the food-web approach. We identify five areas of research where these advances can continue, and be applied to global challenges. Finally, we describe what data are needed in the next generation of food-web studies to reconcile the structure and function of biodiversity.Reconciling the study of biodiversity and ecosystem function We are experiencing two interrelated global ecological crises. One is in biodiversity, with unprecedented rates of species loss across all major ecosystems, combined with greatly accelerated biotic exchange between landmasses [1]. Consequently, spatial and temporal patterns of species occurrence are being fundamentally altered by extinction and invasion. The second crisis concerns the regulation of ecological processes and the ecosystem services they provide. Processes such as primary production and nutrient cycling have been severely altered by human activities [1].Our understanding of biodiversity comes largely from a sound theoretical and empirical basis provided by community ecology, including core concepts such as niche segregation [2] and Island Biogeography [3,4]. Early studies of individual species' habitat preferences and physiological tolerances have been complemented by studies of interspecific interactions from field surveys and experiments. Applications such as conservation management depend largely on mapping of community patterns and studies of habitat occupancy and preferences. More recently, habitat models have been applied, and the advent of simple and cheap molecular markers has allowed quantification of important community assembly (see Glossary) processes such as dispersal [5]. In community ecology the unit of study is the individual, population, or species, consistent with other sub-disciplines such as behavioural and population biology. Review GlossaryAssembly: the set of processes by which a food web is rebuilt after disturbance or the creation of new habitat. Bioenergetics: the flow and transformation of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment. Cascade model: a food-web model which assumes hierarchical feeding along a single niche axis, with each species allocated a probability of feeding on taxa below it in the hierarchy. Community web: a food web intended to include all species and trophic links that occur within a defined ecological community. 'Species' in this sense might involve various degrees of aggregation or division of biological species. Compartmentalisation: the property by which one subset of sp...

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“…Increased stability with increasing complexity has been noted under various conditions in multitrophic foodwebs (Brose et al, 2006;De Angelis, 1975;Fussman and Heber, 2002;McCann and Hastings, 1997;McCann et al, 1998;Neutel et al, 2007;Otto et al, 2007;Williams and Martinez, 2004). While these foodweb studies include systems with non-10 equilibrium dynamics, little work has so far been carried out on non-equilibrium systems focusing on direct competition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing community size and connectance can increase stability in competitive communities

Fowler

2009

Journal of Theoretical Biology

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To cite this version:Mike S. Fowler. Increasing community size and connectance can increase stability in competitive communities.Journal of Theoretical Biology, Elsevier, 2009, 258 (2) This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting galley proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.A c c e p t e d m a n u s c r i p t (0)9 191 57730 Fax: +358 (0)9 191 57694 e-mail: mike.fowler@helsinki.fi ABSTRACT: The relationship between community complexity and stability has been the subject of an enduring debate in ecology over the last 50 years. Results from early model 10 communities showed that increased complexity is associated with decreased local stability. I demonstrate that increasing both the number of species in a community, and the connectance between these species results in an increased probability of local stability in discrete-time competitive communities, when some species would show unstable dynamics in the absence of competition. This is shown analytically for a simple case and across a wider range of 15 community sizes using simulations, where individual species have dynamics that can range from stable point equilibria to periodic or more complex. Increasing the number of competitive links in the community reduces per-capita growth rates through an increase in competitive feedback, stabilising oscillating dynamics. This result was robust to the introduction of a trade-off between competitive ability and intrinsic growth rate and changes 20

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Stabilization of chaotic and non-permanent food-web dynamics

Cited by 175 publications

References 47 publications

Positive complexity–stability relations in food web models without foraging adaptation

Positive complexity–stability relations in food web models without foraging adaptation

Food webs: reconciling the structure and function of biodiversity

Increasing community size and connectance can increase stability in competitive communities

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