Compilation and Network Analyses of Cambrian Food Webs
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A rich body of empirically grounded theory has developed about food webs--the networks of feeding relationships among species within habitats. However, detailed food-web data and analyses are lacking for ancient ecosystems, largely because of the low resolution of taxa coupled with uncertain and incomplete information about feeding interactions. These impediments appear insurmountable for most fossil assemblages; however, a few assemblages with excellent soft-body preservation across trophic levels are candidates for food-web data compilation and topological analysis. Here we present plausible, detailed food webs for the Chengjiang and Burgess Shale assemblages from the Cambrian Period. Analyses of degree distributions and other structural network properties, including sensitivity analyses of the effects of uncertainty associated with Cambrian diet designations, suggest that these early Paleozoic communities share remarkably similar topology with modern food webs. Observed regularities reflect a systematic dependence of structure on the numbers of taxa and links in a web. Most aspects of Cambrian food-web structure are well-characterized by a simple "niche model," which was developed for modern food webs and takes into account this scale dependence. However, a few aspects of topology differ between the ancient and recent webs: longer path lengths between species and more species in feeding loops in the earlier Chengjiang web, and higher variability in the number of links per species for both Cambrian webs. Our results are relatively insensitive to the exclusion of low-certainty or random links. The many similarities between Cambrian and recent food webs point toward surprisingly strong and enduring constraints on the organization of complex feeding interactions among metazoan species. The few differences could reflect a transition to more strongly integrated and constrained trophic organization within ecosystems following the rapid diversification of species, body plans, and trophic roles during the Cambrian radiation. More research is needed to explore the generality of food-web structure through deep time and across habitats, especially to investigate potential mechanisms that could give rise to similar structure, as well as any differences.
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Reconstructed fossil ecosystems (paleo food webs) share universal patterns with modern ecological networks.
“We can also reconstruct fossil ecosystems, the so-called ‘paleo food webs’ [298,299] (figure 8a,b), and again find universal patterns shared with modern ecological networks [303].”
From Fundamental constraints to the logic of living systems (2024) · cites this paper as [303]
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“We can also reconstruct fossil ecosystems, the so-called ‘paleo food webs’ [298,299] (figure 8 a , b ), and again find universal patterns shared with modern ecological networks [303].”
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Dunne, J. A., Williams, R. J., Martinez, N. D., Wood, R. A., & Erwin, D. H.
- Affiliations
- Santa Fe Institute (US)
- Microsoft Research (United Kingdom) (GB)
- National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (US)
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Dunne, Jennifer A
- Venue
- PLoS Biology
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2008-04-29
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- e102
- ISSN
- 1544-9173 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-7885
- PMC
- PMC2689700
- OpenAlex
- W1986606765
- Cited by
- 269
- References
- 77
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 15
- FWCI
- 21.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Edinburgh Research Explorer (University of Edinburgh) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0234980)
- David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- Santa Fe Institute
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology
- Keywords
- Chengjiang biota, Burgess Shale, food web topology, degree distribution, niche models, trophic interactions, Cambrian explosion
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Computer Simulation, Feeding Behavior, Fossils, Predatory Behavior, Species Specificity, Ecosystem, Food Chain
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