IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v450y2007i7173d10.1038_nature06359.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Allometric degree distributions facilitate food-web stability

Author

Listed:
  • Sonja B. Otto

    (Darmstadt University of Technology, Schnittspahnstrasse 10, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany)

  • Björn C. Rall

    (Darmstadt University of Technology, Schnittspahnstrasse 10, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany)

  • Ulrich Brose

    (Darmstadt University of Technology, Schnittspahnstrasse 10, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany
    Pacific Ecoinformatics and Computational Ecology Lab, Berkeley, California 94703, USA)

Abstract

Body size and diversity Maintaining global biodiversity is dependent on understanding which parameters influence food-web stability and how groups of species respond to their variation. Data from food chains involving three invertebrate species across five natural food webs — one from a stream, one from a pond, one from a lake, one terrestrial and one marine — reveal how body-mass ratios between consumer species and their resources allow species coexistence. Empirical body-mass ratios of species in these natural networks are consistent with the predictions of a bioenergetic consumer-resource model. Thus, simple relationships between body sizes and food-web structures may determine food-web stability.

Suggested Citation

  • Sonja B. Otto & Björn C. Rall & Ulrich Brose, 2007. "Allometric degree distributions facilitate food-web stability," Nature, Nature, vol. 450(7173), pages 1226-1229, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:450:y:2007:i:7173:d:10.1038_nature06359
    DOI: 10.1038/nature06359
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06359
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature06359?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Xinhe & Wang, Zhen, 2022. "Bifurcation and propagation dynamics of a discrete pair SIS epidemic model on networks with correlation coefficient," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 435(C).
    2. Lin, Yangchen & Sutherland, William J., 2013. "Color and degree of interspecific synchrony of environmental noise affect the variability of complex ecological networks," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 263(C), pages 162-173.
    3. Borrett, Stuart R. & Moody, James & Edelmann, Achim, 2014. "The rise of Network Ecology: Maps of the topic diversity and scientific collaboration," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 293(C), pages 111-127.
    4. Fujiwara, Masami, 2016. "Incorporating demographic diversity into food web models: Effects on community structure and dynamics," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 322(C), pages 10-18.
    5. González, Cecilia, 2023. "Evolution of the concept of ecological integrity and its study through networks," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 476(C).
    6. Wang, Xinhe & Lu, Junwei & Wang, Zhen & Li, Yuxia, 2020. "Dynamics of discrete epidemic models on heterogeneous networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 539(C).
    7. Timothée Poisot & Sonia Kéfi & Serge Morand & Michal Stanko & Pablo A Marquet & Michael E Hochberg, 2015. "A Continuum of Specialists and Generalists in Empirical Communities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(5), pages 1-12, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:450:y:2007:i:7173:d:10.1038_nature06359. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.