Journal article
Relative ascendency predicts food web robustness
Ecological research, Vol.33(5), pp.873-878
09/2018
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Abstract
Threats to ecosystems globally from anthropogenic disturbance and climate change requires us to urgently identify the most sensitive biological communities to ensure they are effectively preserved. It is for this reason that understanding and predicting food web stability has been topical within ecology. Food web stability is a multi‐faceted concept that represents the ability of a food web to maintain its integrity following disturbance, it includes resistance, resilience and fragility. In this study, we examine the ability of four food web metrics to predict the fragility to random species extinctions in 120 qualitative food webs. We show that three information‐based indices out performed food web connectance in predicting fragility, with relative ascendency having the strongest relationship. Relative ascendency was a much stronger predictor of fragility than MacArthur's stability metric, Average Mutual Information and connectance as it accounted for both the distribution and number of links between species. We also find that most qualitative food webs persist around a central tendency of relative ascendency.
Details
- Title
- Relative ascendency predicts food web robustness
- Creators
- Adam Douglas Canning - Massey UniversityRussell George Death - Massey University
- Publication Details
- Ecological research, Vol.33(5), pp.873-878
- Publisher
- Springer Japan
- Number of pages
- 6
- Identifiers
- 991013092524702368
- Copyright
- © 2018 The Ecological Society of Japan.
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Science and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article