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Trophic links of community food webs.
Open accessAbstract
This report describes and explains regularities in the numbers and kinds of trophic links in community food webs. To a first approximation, the mean number of trophic links in a community food web is proportional to the total number of trophic species. The mean number of trophic links between any two categories of trophic species (basal, intermediate, and top) is proportional to the geometric mean number of species in the categories joined. These linear relationships, and scale-invariance in the proportions of basal, intermediate, and top species, make it possible to predict with remarkable precision the proportions of each kind of trophic link among all community food webs. The differences between food webs in constant and in fluctuating environments reflect apparently greater constraints on the trophic organization of food webs in fluctuating environments.
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Cited by
Food-web structure and network theory: The role of connectance and size
Dunne, J. A., Williams, R. J., & Martinez, N. D. (2002) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.192407699 · Cited by 1,519
The Effects of Fishing on Marine Ecosystems
Jennings, S., & Kaiser, M. J. (1998) · Advances in Marine Biology · doi:10.1016/s0065-2881(08)60212-6 · Cited by 1,502
The small world inside large metabolic networks
Wagner, A., & Fell, D. A. (2001) · Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2001.1711 · Cited by 981
Artifacts or Attributes? Effects of Resolution on the Little Rock Lake Food Web
Martinez, N. D. (1991) · Ecological Monographs · doi:10.2307/2937047 · Cited by 696
Complexity and stability of ecological networks: a review of the theory
Landi, P., Minoarivelo, H. O., Brännström, Å., Hui, C., & Dieckmann, U. (2018) · Population Ecology · doi:10.1007/s10144-018-0628-3 · Cited by 685
Metadata
- Authors
- Cohen, J. E., & Briand, F.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 1984-07
- Volume
- 81
- Issue
- 13
- Pages
- 4105-4109
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- OpenAlex
- W1981140108
- Cited by
- 207
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 2.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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