Origin of compartmentalization in food webs
Open accessAbstract
The response of an ecosystem to perturbations is mediated by both antagonistic and facilitative interactions between species. It is thought that a community's resilience depends crucially on the food web—the network of trophic interactions—and on the food web's degree of compartmentalization. Despite its ecological importance, compartmentalization and the mechanisms that give rise to it remain poorly understood. Here we investigate several definitions of compartments, propose ways to understand the ecological meaning of these definitions, and quantify the degree of compartmentalization of empirical food webs. We find that the compartmentalization observed in empirical food webs can be accounted for solely by the niche organization of species and their diets. By uncovering connections between compartmentalization and species' diet contiguity, our findings help us understand which perturbations can result in fragmentation of the food web and which can lead to catastrophic effects. Additionally, we show that the composition of compartments can be used to address the long‐standing question of what determines the ecological niche of a species.
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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 Guimerà et al. 2010
The Discussion reports that empirical food webs are significantly compartmentalized and says increased compartmentalization may increase ecosystem stability by containing perturbations. The source studies food webs rather than ecological networks generally, and the cited passages discuss stability and resilience, not persistence. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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Spiesman, B. J., & Gratton, C. (2016) · Ecology · doi:10.1890/15-1735.1 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
“Modularity is thought to result from niche organization and similarity of resource use (Guimerà et al. 2010), which may promote biodiversity through niche partitioning and complementary specialization (Blüthgen and Klein 2011).”
BackgroundEcological network assembly: How the regional metaweb influences local food webs
Saravia, L. A., Marina, T. I., Kristensen, N. P., Troch, M. D., & Momo, F. (2021) · Journal of Animal Ecology · doi:10.1111/1365-2656.13652 · Cited by 46 · see citing works
Kharrazi, A., Fath, B. D., & Katzmair, H. (2016) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su8090935 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
“Recent empirical work conducted on food-webs has confirmed that food webs are more compartmentalized than a null model where species interact with equal probability with other species [76,77,85].”
BackgroundIsland Biogeography of Food Webs
Massol, F., Dubart, M., Calcagno, V., Cazelles, K., Jacquet, C., Kéfi, S., & Gravel, D. (2016) · Advances in ecological research/Advances in Ecological Research · doi:10.1016/bs.aecr.2016.10.004 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
“Thus, the origin of compartmentalization in food webs could be unrelated to a stability/robustness issue, but rather to the niche-based organization of food webs (Guimera et al., 2010).”
BackgroundFood webs: ordering species according to body size yields high degree of intervality.
Zook, A., Eklof, A., Jacob, U., & Allesina, S. (2011) · Journal of Theoretical Biology · doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2010.11.045 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
Hui, C., Richardson, D. M., Pyšek, P., Roux, J. J. L., Kučera, T., & Jaros̆ı́k, V. (2013) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/ncomms3454 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
Emergence of consensus as a modular-to-nested transition in communication dynamics
Borge‐Holthoefer, J., Baños, R. A., Gracia-Lázaro, C., & Moreno, Y. (2017) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/srep41673 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
“Moreover, the level of turnover in the sequence of data is very informative, as it characterizes how the system renews its structure over time (see the main text).”
BackgroundPredation risk influences food‐web structure by constraining species diet choice
Ho, H., Tylianakis, J. M., Zheng, J. X., & Pawar, S. S. (2019) · Ecology Letters · doi:10.1111/ele.13334 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Assessing the robustness of networks of spatial genetic variation
Albert, E. M., Fortuna, M. A., Godoy, J. A., & Bascompte, J. (2013) · Ecology Letters · doi:10.1111/ele.12061 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
“On one hand, ecologists have tried to find evidence for modularity in real ecological networks (Pimm & Lawton 1980; Raffaelli & Hall 1992; Meli an & Bascompte 2004; Olesen et al. 2007; Guimer a et al. 2010).”
BackgroundNuwagaba, S., Zhang, F., & Hui, C. (2015) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.0320 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Trophic Interactions of Turtles in a North Florida Lake Food Web: Prevalence of Omnivory
Aresco, M. J., Travis, J., & MacRae, P. S. D. (2015) · Copeia · doi:10.1643/ce-13-130 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
“…these species can reduce the level of compartmentalization, but there is no loss of stability in the overall food web of the lake because diet switching and the high number of weak trophic interactions dilute the effects of lesser compartmentalization (Motta and Uieda, 2005; Guimera et al., 2010).”
BackgroundRobustness of rigid and adaptive networks to species loss
Nuwagaba, S., Zhang, F., & Hui, C. (2017) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0189086 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Interactions among anthropogenic effects on aquatic food webs
Kovalenko, K. E. (2019) · Hydrobiologia · doi:10.1007/s10750-019-04018-x · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Food web modularity and biodiversity promote species persistence in polluted environments
Garay‐Narváez, L., Flores, J. D., Arim, M., & Ramos‐Jiliberto, R. (2013) · Oikos · doi:10.1111/j.1600-0706.2013.00764.x · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Ferreira, F. S., Brito, S. V., Almeida, W. D. O., & Alves, R. R. N. (2015) · Regional Environmental Change · doi:10.1007/s10113-015-0767-4 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
“The analysis of interaction networks is a method that has been used to describe patterns in ecological communities through interactions among species (Guimera et al. 2010; Lewinsohn et al. 2006).”
MethodThe heterogeneity–diversity–system performance nexus
Eisenhauer, N., Angst, G., Asato, A. E. B., Beugnon, R., Bönisch, E., Cesarz, S., Dietrich, P., Jurburg, S. D., Madaj, A., Reuben, R. C., et al. (2023) · National Science Review · doi:10.1093/nsr/nwad109 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
“That is, when patterns of species interactions are organized according to spatial heterogeneity in landscapes, disturbances propagate within subsystems of species that interact closely with each other within a patch, but resistance is conveyed to the landscape or system as a whole [63,64].”
BackgroundThe importance of being modular
Sales‐Pardo, M. (2017) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aan8075 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
Self-citationNetwork modularity influences plant reproduction in a mosaic tropical agroecosystem
Saunders, M. E., & Rader, R. (2019) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2019.0296 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
Stable diverse food webs become more common when interactions are more biologically constrained
Gellner, G., McCann, K. S., & Hastings, A. (2023) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2212061120 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
“This model has been found to recreate common empirical findings for network structure across diverse ecosystems but does not introduce compartmentation like the more popular Niche model (41, 42) which we wanted to control for to make the results more comparable to classical random matrix approaches, while still being…”
ResultTrophic structuring of modularity alters energy flow through marine food webs
Eskuche‐Keith, P., Hill, S. L., Hollyman, P. R., Taylor, M. L., & O’Gorman, E. J. (2023) · Frontiers in Marine Science · doi:10.3389/fmars.2022.1046150 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
“Previous research has suggested that the level of diet contiguity in the food web may determine modularity, with modules in some networks displaying trophic clustering such that they encompass a relatively limited range of trophic levels and have low overlap of trophic levels between modules (Guimera et al., 2010; Kor…”
BackgroundQuinto, J., Marcos-García, M. Á., Díaz‐Castelazo, C., Rico‐Gray, V., Galante, E., & Micó, E. (2015) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0122141 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Detection of structurally homogeneous subsets in graphs
Léger, J.-B., Vacher, C., & Daudin, J. (2013) · Statistics and Computing · doi:10.1007/s11222-013-9395-3 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Structure, dynamics and stability of a Mediterranean river food web
Peralta‐Maraver, I., López‐Rodríguez, M. J., & de Figueroa, J. M. T. (2016) · Marine and Freshwater Research · doi:10.1071/mf15154 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Food web aggregation: effects on key positions
Giacomuzzo, E., & Jordán, F. (2021) · Oikos · doi:10.1111/oik.08541 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
DNA metabarcoding reveals broadly overlapping diets in three sympatric North American hummingbirds
Spence, A. R., Rankin, E. W. W., & Tingley, M. (2021) · Ornithology · doi:10.1093/ornithology/ukab074 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Howe, E. R., Simenstad, C. A., & Ogston, A. S. (2017) · Ecological Applications · doi:10.1002/eap.1600 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Zetina-Rejón, M. J., Neri, E. C., López‐Ibarra, G. A., Arcos-Huitrón, N. E., & Villy Christensen, A. (2015) · Ecological Modelling · doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2015.07.001 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
“It has been suggested that rophic interaction data may be all that is needed to study compart- entalization processes and reveal food web fragmentation effects Guimerà et al., 2010).”
BackgroundKempf, H. L., Castro, I. O., Dineen, A. A., Tyler, C. L., & Roopnarine, P. D. (2020) · Paleobiology · doi:10.1017/pab.2020.26 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
“…https://doi.org/10.1017/pab.2020.26 Published online by Cambridge University Press accurate, can never be precisely speci fi ed by a single topology (Roopnarine 2006, 2010, 2018; Roopnarine and Dineen 2018), because no food web reconstruction (modern or fossil) can capture all species interactions.”
InfluentialLourenço, P., Catry, T., Lopes, R., Piersma, T., & Granadeiro, J. (2017) · Marine Ecology Progress Series · doi:10.3354/meps11979 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
“Therefore, the resilience of a community will depend on the network of trophic interactions (Guimerà et al. 2010).”
BackgroundKharrazi, A. (2018) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-409548-9.10751-1 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Trophic hierarchy in a marine community revealed by network analysis on co-occurrence data
Russo, L., Casella, V., Marabotti, A., Jordán, F., Congestri, R., & D’Alelio, D. (2022) · Food Webs · doi:10.1016/j.fooweb.2022.e00246 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
How production networks amplify economic growth
McNerney, J., Savoie, C., Caravelli, F., Carvalho, V. M., & Farmer, J. D. (2021) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2106031118 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
“ure of inter-industry ows. Physica A 392 , 6427{ 6441 (2013). [8] Carvalho, V. M. Aggregate Fluctuations and the Network Structure of Intersectoral Trade . Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago (2008). [9] Antras, P., Chor, D., Fally, T. & Hillberry, R. Measuring the upstreamness of production and trade ows. America…”
BackgroundA network-based measure of functional diversity in food webs
Lin, W.-H., Lai, S.-M., Davis, A., Liu, W., & Jordán, F. (2022) · Biology Letters · doi:10.1098/rsbl.2022.0183 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Using network analysis to study and manage human-mediated dispersal of exotic species
Runghen, R., Llopis‐Belenguer, C., McNeill, M. R., Riva, G. V. D., & Stouffer, D. B. (2023) · Biological Invasions · doi:10.1007/s10530-023-03122-3 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
“…measuring the connectance (Olesen and Jordano 2002), nested-ness (Pires et al. 2014) and compartmentalisation or modularity (Bascompte et al. 2003; Guimerà et al. 2010; Newman 2010; Stouffer and Bascompte 2011) of a dispersal vector–site network, we can quantify the likelihood of a site to be…”
BackgroundSelf-citationSpatial compartmentation and food web stability
Mougi, A. (2018) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-018-34716-w · Cited by 14 · see citing works
From robustness to resilience: A network Price identity approach
Dragicevic, A. Z. (2016) · Ecological Complexity · doi:10.1016/j.ecocom.2016.10.002 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
McGarvey, D. J., & Veech, J. A. (2018) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0208720 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Degree of intervality of food webs: from body-size data to models.
Capitán, J. A., Arenas, A., & Guimerà, R. (2013) · Journal of Theoretical Biology · doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2013.06.004 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Self-citationSelecting food web models using normalized maximum likelihood
Staniczenko, P. P. A., Smith, M. J., & Stefano Allesina, A. (2014) · Methods in Ecology and Evolution · doi:10.1111/2041-210x.12192 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
“The modular model family is based on the presence of compartments or modules in ecology (Krause et al. 2003; Allesina & Pascual 2009; Rezende et al. 2009; Guimera et al. 2010; Stouffer &Bascompte 2011).”
Li, Y., Chen, Z., Peng, C., Huang, G., Niu, H., & Zhang, H. (2021) · BMC Ecology and Evolution · doi:10.1186/s12862-021-01865-y · Cited by 13 · see citing works
“(1) Richness, the number of bird species; (2) Shannon–Wiener diversity index and Pielou uniformity index, parameters to measure abundance and heterogeneity, were mainly used in the diversity characteristics of birds [32], (3) Connectance (C), the proportion of realized interactions out of those possible in the network…”
Russo, L., Bellardini, D., Zampicinini, G., Jordán, F., Congestri, R., & D'Alelio, D. (2023) · Marine Ecology · doi:10.1111/maec.12733 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Interaction patterns within a multi-herbivore assemblage derived from stable isotopes
Miranda, M., Dalerum, F., & Parrini, F. (2014) · Ecological Complexity · doi:10.1016/j.ecocom.2014.08.002 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Identifying compartments in ecological networks based on energy channels
Zhao, L., Zhang, H., Tian, W., & Xu, X. (2017) · Ecology and Evolution · doi:10.1002/ece3.3648 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
“Most food webs in our study were found to be strongly compartmentalized, in agreement with previous research (Guimera et al., 2010; Krause et al., 2003; Rezende et al., 2009).”
ResultCore–periphery organization of the cryptocurrency market inferred by the modularity operator
Polovnikov, K., Kazakov, V., & Syntulsky, S. (2019) · Physica A Statistical Mechanics and its Applications · doi:10.1016/j.physa.2019.123075 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Bellisario, B., Cerfolli, F., & Nascetti, G. (2012) · Aquatic Ecology · doi:10.1007/s10452-012-9412-1 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“Among many, modularity is considered one of the main topological structures often found in many ecological networks (Krause et al. 2003; Olesen et al. 2007; Fortuna et al. 2009; Guimerà et al. 2010).”
BackgroundInfluentialStatistical mechanics of the directed 2-distance minimal dominating set problem
Habibulla, Y. (2020) · Communications in Theoretical Physics · doi:10.1088/1572-9494/aba249 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Paula, D. P., & Andow, D. A. (2022) · Neotropical Entomology · doi:10.1007/s13744-022-01011-3 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Ecological network assembly: how the regional metaweb influences local food websPreprint
Saravia, L., Marina, T. I., Kristensen, N., Troch, M. D., & Momo, F. (2018) · bioRxiv · doi:10.1101/340430 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
“Theoretical and empirical results suggest these roles are related to species traits, such as wide niche breadth, environmental tolerance, apex position in local communities and high motility (Rezende et al. 2009, Guimerà et al. 2010, Borthagaray et al. 2014, Kortsch et al. 2015).”
BackgroundMale Visitors May Decrease Modularity in Flower–Visitor Networks
Kishi, S., & Kakutani, T. (2020) · Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution · doi:10.3389/fevo.2020.00124 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
The Use of Ecological Networks as Tools for Understanding and Conserving Marine Biodiversity
Velásquez, V. M., Raimundo, R. L. G., Rosa, R. D. S., & Navia, A. F. (2020) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-58211-1_9 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Ecological Multilayer Networks: A New Frontier for Network EcologyPreprint
Pilosof, S., Porter, M. A., & Kéfi, S. (2015) · arXiv (Cornell University) · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Unraveling emergent network indeterminacy in complex ecosystems: A random matrix approach
Kawatsu, K. (2024) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2322939121 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
“This should be unsuitable for natural settings, and nonrandom network configurations, such as nest-edness of generalist/specialist species and compartmentalization of interaction webs, are frequently observed in natural ecological communities (51, 52).”
Species coexistence and niche theory
Mittelbach, G. G., & McGill, B. J. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780198835851.003.0008 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Comparing forest governance models against invasive biological threats
Dragicevic, A. Z. (2018) · Journal of Theoretical Biology · doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2018.11.014 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
SiMoCo: the viability of a prototype platform for a coastal monitoring system: a case study
Pereira, G. C., de Oliveira, M. M. F., de Andrade, L. P., Espíndola, R. P., van Hecke, K. G., & Ebecken, N. F. F. (2016) · Journal of Marine Science and Technology · doi:10.1007/s00773-016-0380-3 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
- Authors
- Guimerà, R., Stouffer, D. B., Sales-Pardo, M., Leicht, E. A., Newman, M. E. J., & Amaral, L. A. N.
- Affiliations
- Northwestern University (US)
- Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (ES)
- University of California, Davis (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Corresponding author
- Guimerà, R.
- Venue
- Ecology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2010-10
- Volume
- 91
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 2941-2951
- ISSN
- 0012-9658 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-9170
- OpenAlex
- W2133439349
- Cited by
- 201
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 33 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 7.98
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- Ecology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Oxford University Research Archive (ORA) (University of Oxford) (acceptedVersion)
- Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0804778, 0624318)
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- James S. McDonnell Foundation
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Mathematical and Theoretical Epidemiology and Ecology Models
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Sustainability and Ecological Systems Analysis
- Keywords
- trophic interactions, ecological niche, ecosystem resilience, perturbation response
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Feeding Behavior, Models, Biological, Food Chain
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