Revisiting the Links-Species Scaling Relationship in Food Webs

Patterns
Arthur Andrew Meahan MacDonaldT. Poisot

Abstract

Predicting the number of interactions among species in a food web is an important task. These trophic interactions underlie many ecological and evolutionary processes, ranging from biomass fluxes, ecosystem stability, resilience to extinction, and resistance against novel species. We investigate and compare several ways to predict the number of interactions in food webs. We conclude that a simple beta-binomial model outperforms other models, with the added desirable property of respecting biological constraints. We show how this simple relationship gives rise to a predicted distribution of several quantities related to link number in food webs, including the scaling of network structure with space and the probability that a network will be stable.

Citations

Mar 25, 2021·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Tad A Dallas, Pedro Jordano
Apr 15, 2021·Biology Letters·Jean P Gibert, Daniel J Wieczynski
Sep 21, 2021·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Tanya StrydomTimothée Poisot

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