| 1. |
- Brose, Ulrich, et al.
(författare)
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Body sizes of consumers and their resources
- 2005
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Ingår i: Ecology. - : Ecological Society of America. - 0012-9658 .- 1939-9170. ; 86:9, s. 2545-2545
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Trophic information—who eats whom—and species’ body sizes are two of the most basic descriptions necessary to understand community structure as well as ecological and evolutionary dynamics. Consumer–resource body size ratios between predators and their prey, and parasitoids and their hosts, have recently gained increasing attention due to their important implications for species’ interaction strengths and dynamical population stability. This data set documents body sizes of consumers and their resources. We gathered body size data for the food webs of Skipwith Pond, a parasitoid community of grass-feeding chalcid wasps in British grasslands; the pelagic community of the Benguela system, a source web based on broom in the United Kingdom; Broadstone Stream, UK; the Grand Caric¸aie marsh at Lake Neuchaˆtel, Switzerland; Tuesday Lake, USA; alpine lakes in the Sierra Nevada of California; Mill Stream, UK; and the eastern Weddell Sea Shelf, Antarctica. Further consumer–resource body size data are included for planktonic predators, predatory nematodes, parasitoids, marine fish predators, freshwater invertebrates, Australian terrestrial consumers, and aphid parasitoids. Containing 16 807 records, this is the largest data set ever compiled for body sizes of consumers and their resources. In addition to body sizes, the data set includes information on consumer and resource taxonomy, the geographic location of the study, the habitat studied, the type of the feeding interaction (e.g., predacious, parasitic) and the metabolic categories of the species (e.g., invertebrate, ectotherm vertebrate). The present data set was gathered with the intent to stimulate research on effects of consumer–resource body size patterns on food-web structure, interaction-strength distributions, population dynamics, and community stability. The use of a common data set may facilitate cross-study comparisons and understanding of the relationships between different scientific approaches and models.
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| 2. |
- Pinnegar, John K., et al.
(författare)
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How to determine the likely indirect food-web consequences of a newly introduced non-native species : A worked example
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ecological Modelling. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-3800 .- 1872-7026. ; 272, s. 379-387
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we demonstrate through a worked case-study that it is possible to make an assessment of the indirect food-web consequences that might occur as a result of the arrival of a hither-to not observed non-native species. We also explore implications for commercial fisheries catches, through the application of a suite of complimentary ecosystem modelling tools. Fistularia commersonii is a lessepsian migrant (introduced via the Suez Canal) that was first recorded in the Mediterranean in January 2000. It has since spread throughout the basin and has been described as the fastest and farthest spreading lessepsian fish migrant ever recorded'. We have used a Rank Proportion Algorithm (RPA) model to predict the theoretical diet composition of F. commersonii in the Bay of Calvi, Corsica. We did so based on potential prey abundances, as well as morphological and behavioural characteristics of both the prey and this novel predator. The 'predicted' diet composition of F. commersonii derived from the RPA analysis was then used as input to an Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) model. This model was used to simulate possible consequences of introducing this invasive species, assuming different rates of expansion of F. commersonii populations in the region. Increases in the F. commersonii population resulted in a marked decline in certain prey types (notably planktivorous fish, Mullus surmuletus and Symphodus tinca). By contrast, seabirds and piscivorous fish were suggested as possible beneficiaries, although this depended heavily on model and scenario assumptions. Overall fisheries catches were projected to increase, and this reflected an anticipated 'bottom up' increase in piscivorous fish that are the main target of the commercial fishery in the Bay of Calvi region.
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