Compartments revealed in food-web structure.
Open accessAbstract
Compartments in food webs are subgroups of taxa in which many strong interactions occur within the subgroups and few weak interactions occur between the subgroups. Theoretically, compartments increase the stability in networks, such as food webs. Compartments have been difficult to detect in empirical food webs because of incompatible approaches or insufficient methodological rigour. Here we show that a method for detecting compartments from the social networking science identified significant compartments in three of five complex, empirical food webs. Detection of compartments was influenced by food web resolution, such as interactions with weights. Because the method identifies compartmental boundaries in which interactions are concentrated, it is compatible with the definition of compartments. The method is rigorous because it maximizes an explicit function, identifies the number of non-overlapping compartments, assigns membership to compartments, and tests the statistical significance of the results. A graphical presentation reveals systemic relationships and taxa-specific positions as structured by compartments. From this graphic, we explore two scenarios of disturbance to develop a hypothesis for testing how compartmentalized interactions increase stability in food webs.
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Compartmentalisation is commonly observed in complex ecological networks and is thought to enhance their stability and persistence.
“a feature commonly observed in complex ecological networks and thought to enhance their stability and persistence”
From A Food Web Model of the Serengeti: Stability, Dynamics and Indirect Effects (2026) · cites this paper as Krause et al. 2003
In “Compartments revealed in food-web structure” (page not provided), the authors report significant compartments in three of five complex empirical food webs and describe a theoretical stabilizing effect. This supports occurrence in some food webs and the proposed link to stability, but not the broader claim that compartmentalisation is commonly observed across complex ecological networks or that it enhances persistence. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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- Authors
- Krause, A. E., Frank, K. A., Mason, D. M., Ulanowicz, R. E., & Taylor, W. W.
- Affiliations
- Michigan State University (US)
- NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (US)
- Corresponding author
- Krause, Ann E.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2003-11
- Volume
- 426
- Issue
- 6964
- Pages
- 282-285
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W1985381446
- Cited by
- 795
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 27 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 57 · 2021: 43 · 2020: 42 · 2019: 57 · 2018: 47 · 2017: 32 · 2016: 36 · 2015: 49 · 2014: 31 · 2013: 37 · 2012: 26
- FWCI
- 13.84
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Great Lakes Fishery Commission
- Goddard Space Flight Center
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Complex Network Analysis Techniques
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Mathematical and Theoretical Epidemiology and Ecology Models
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Keywords
- food web structure, network stability, social network analysis, disturbance scenarios
- MeSH terms
- Algorithms, Animals, Humans, Models, Biological, Social Behavior, United States, Food Chain
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