Spatial synchrony propagates through a forest food web via consumer–resource interactions

Ecology ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 90 (11) ◽  
pp. 2974-2983 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle J. Haynes ◽  
Andrew M. Liebhold ◽  
Todd M. Fearer ◽  
Guiming Wang ◽  
Gary W. Norman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Web ◽  
Spatial Synchrony ◽  
Resource Interactions ◽  
Consumer Resource

Adding the Ecosystem

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin S. McCann
Keyword(s):  
Food Web ◽  
Food Webs ◽  
Closed System ◽  
Nutrient Recycling ◽  
Interaction Strength ◽  
Nonequilibrium Dynamics ◽  
Nutrient Pool ◽  
Food Web Dynamics ◽  
Resource Interactions ◽  
Consumer Resource

This chapter examines how nutrient recycling and decomposition affect the dynamics and stability of food webs. It first reviews some of the existing theory on detritus and food web dynamics before discussing the basics of a model that takes into account grazing food webs and whole ecosystems. It then describes the N-R-D (nutrient pool, resource, detritus) submodule as well as the full N-C-R-D (nutrient pool, consumer, resource, detritus) model. It also explores how detritus may act to distribute nutrients by considering a model that begets nonequilibrium dynamics. It shows that detritus tends to stabilize consumer–resource interactions relative to the purely community module (no recycling) because the detritus tends to fall out of phase with the resource–nutrient interaction. The addition of a consumer–resource incteraction to the N-R-D module, even in a closed system, eventually can drive overshoot dynamics and destabilization by increased production, coupling, or interaction strength.

Lagged Consumer-Resource Dynamics

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin S. McCann
Keyword(s):  
Food Web ◽  
Alternative Stable States ◽  
Interaction Strength ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Stage Structure ◽  
Stable States ◽  
Food Web Interactions ◽  
Resource Interactions ◽  
Resource Dynamics ◽  
Consumer Resource

This chapter examines the influence of biological lags on consumer–resource dynamics, with particular emphasis on how consumer–resource cycles, or the lack thereof, interact with population level dynamical phenomena. It first considers discrete consumer–resource interactions before discussing the dynamics of stage-structured consumer–resource interactions. It then explains how stage structure promotes the possibility of alternative stable states and changes consumer–resource interaction strength. It also shows how a change in population structure affects food web interactions and/or the strengths of food webs. Finally, it reviews empirical results that show how stage structure and food web interaction influence ecological stability. The chapter argues that weak and inherently stable consumer–resource interactions can mute a potentially unstable population level phenomenon, and that a dynamically decoupled stable stage class can strongly stabilize other stages and the consumer–resource interaction.

scholarly journals The geographic scaling of biotic interactions

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel B Araújo ◽  
Alejandro Rozenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Biotic Interactions ◽  
Species Distributions ◽  
Scale Dependence ◽  
Positive Interactions ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Species Ranges ◽  
Central Tenet ◽  
Resource Interactions ◽  
Occurrence Patterns ◽  
Consumer Resource

A central tenet of ecology and biogeography is that the broad outlines of species ranges are determined by climate, whereas the effects of biotic interactions are manifested at local scales. While the first proposition is supported by ample evidence, the second is still a matter of controversy. To address this question, we develop a mathematical model that predicts the spatial overlap, i.e., co-occurrence, between pairs of species subject to all possible types of interactions. We then identify the scale in which predicted range overlaps are lost. We found that co-occurrence arising from positive interactions, such as mutualism (+/+) and commensalism (+/0), are manifested across scales of resolution. Negative interactions, such as competition (-/-) and amensalism (-/0), generate checkerboard-type co-occurrence patterns that are discernible at finer resolutions. Scale dependence in consumer-resource interactions (+/-) depends on the strength of positive dependencies between species. Our results challenge the widely held view that climate alone is sufficient to characterize species distributions at broad scales, but also demonstrate that the spatial signature of competition is unlikely to be discernible beyond local and regional scales.

scholarly journals Species heterogeneity in food webs can reduce the potential for alternative stable states

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vadim A. Karatayev ◽  
Marissa L. Baskett ◽  
Egbert van Nes
Keyword(s):  
Food Web ◽  
Food Webs ◽  
Species Differences ◽  
Alternative Stable States ◽  
Stable States ◽  
Resource Interactions ◽  
Vulnerable Consumers ◽  
Consumer Recovery ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Species Roles

AbstractOverexploitation can lead to a rapid collapse of consumers that is difficult to reverse if ecosystems exhibit alternative stable states. However, support for this phenomenon remains predominantly limited to simple models, whereas food webs might dissipate the feedback loops that create alternative stable states through species-specific demography and interactions. Here we develop a general model of consumer-resource interactions with two types of processes: either specialized feedbacks where individual resources become unpalatable at high abundance or aggregate feedbacks where overall resource abundance reduces consumer recruitment. We then quantify how the degree of interconnectedness and species differences in demography affect the potential for either feedback to produce consumer- or resource-dominated food web states. Our results highlight that such alternative stable states could be more likely to happen when aggregate feedbacks or lower species differences increase redundancy in species contributions to persistence of the consumer guild. Conversely, specialized palatability feedbacks with distinctive species roles in guild persistence reduce the potential for alternative states but increase the likelihood that losing vulnerable consumers cascades into a food web collapse at low stress levels, a fragility absent in few-species models. Altogether, we suggest that species heterogeneity has a greater impact on whether feedbacks prevent consumer recovery than on the presence of many-species collapses.

Food Chains and Omnivory

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin S. McCann
Keyword(s):  
Food Web ◽  
Food Webs ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Food Chain ◽  
Stage Structure ◽  
Food Chains ◽  
Dependent Manner ◽  
Food Web Structure ◽  
Web Structure ◽  
Consumer Resource

This chapter extends the consumer–resource theory to include simple but common three-species modules behind the construction of whole food webs, with particular emphasis on food chains and omnivory. It first considers some common simple modular food web structures and whether the dynamics of subsystems can be seen using the framework laid out in previous chapters. Specifically, it asks when common food web structure increases or weakens the relative interaction strengths and/or when a food web structure modifies flux between consumers and resources in a density-dependent manner such that the food web tends to increase flux rates in some situations and decrease the coupling in other situations. The chapter also explores how stage structure can influence food chain stability before concluding with a review of empirical evidence on the dynamical implications of omnivory for food webs.

Consumer–resource dynamics of indirect interactions in a mutualism–parasitism food web module

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Nathaniel Holland ◽  
Yuanshi Wang ◽  
Shan Sun ◽  
Donald L. DeAngelis
Keyword(s):  
Food Web ◽  
Indirect Interactions ◽  
Resource Dynamics ◽  
Consumer Resource

scholarly journals Consumer-resource interactions and cyclic population dynamics of Tanytarsus gracilentus (Diptera: Chironomidae)

2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (5) ◽  
pp. 832-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arni Einarsson ◽  
Arnthor Gardarsson ◽  
Gisli Mar Gislason ◽  
Anthony R. Ives
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Resource Interactions ◽  
Consumer Resource

scholarly journals Strong nutrient-plant interactions enhance the stability of ecosystems

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachariah G. Schonberger ◽  
Kevin McCann ◽  
Gabriel Gellner
Keyword(s):  
Food Web ◽  
Food Webs ◽  
Plant Interactions ◽  
Ecosystem Models ◽  
Resource Interactions ◽  
Ecosystem Theory ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Ecosystem Interactions ◽  
Food Web Theory

AbstractModular food web theory shows how weak energetic fluxes resulting from consumptive interactions plays a major role in stabilizing food webs in space and time. Despite the reliance on energetic fluxes, food web theory surprisingly remains poorly understood within an ecosystem context that naturally focuses on material fluxes. At the same time, while ecosystem theory has employed modular nutrient-limited ecosystem models to understand how limiting nutrients alter the structure and dynamics of food webs, ecosystem theory has overlooked the role of key ecosystem interactions and their strengths (e.g., plant-nutrient; R-N) in mediating the stability of nutrient-limited ecosystems. Here, towards integrating food web theory and ecosystem theory, we first briefly review consumer-resource interactions (C-R) highlighting the relationship between the structure of C-R interactions and the stability of food web modules. We then translate this framework to nutrient-based systems, showing that the nutrient-plant interaction behaves as a coherent extension of current modular food web theory; however, in contrast to the rule that weak C-R interactions tend to be stabilizing we show that strong nutrient-plant interactions are potent stabilizers in nutrient-limited ecosystem models.

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