The Role of Body Size in Complex Food Webs: A Cold Case

Ute Jacob*, Aaron Thierry, Ulrich Brose, Wolf E. Arntz, Sofia Berg, Thomas Brey, Ingo Fetzer, Tomas Jonsson, Katja Mintenbeck, Christian Moellmann, Owen L. Petchey, Jens O. Riede, Jennifer A. Dunne

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract / Description of output

Human-induced habitat destruction, overexploitation, introduction of alien species and climate change are causing species to go extinct at unprecedented rates, from local to global scales. There are growing concerns that these kinds of disturbances alter important functions of ecosystems. Our current understanding is that key parameters of a community (e.g. its functional diversity, species composition, and presence/absence of vulnerable species) reflect an ecological network's ability to resist or rebound from change in response to pressures and disturbances, such as species loss. If the food web structure is relatively simple, we can analyse the roles of different species interactions in determining how environmental impacts translate into species loss. However, when ecosystems harbour species-rich communities, as is the case in most natural systems, then the complex network of ecological interactions makes it a far more challenging task to perceive how species' functional roles influence the consequences of species loss. One approach to deal with such complexity is to focus on the functional traits of species in order to identify their respective roles: for instance, large species seem to be more susceptible to extinction than smaller species. Here, we introduce and analyse the marine food web from the high Antarctic Weddell Sea Shelf to illustrate the role of species traits in relation to network robustness of this complex food web. Our approach was threefold: firstly, we applied a new classification system to all species, grouping them by traits other than body size; secondly, we tested the relationship between body size and food web parameters within and across these groups and finally, we calculated food web robustness. We addressed questions regarding (i) patterns of species functional/trophic roles, (ii) relationships between species functional roles and body size and (iii) the role of species body size in terms of network robustness. Our results show that when analyzing relationships between trophic structure, body size and network structure, the diversity of predatory species types needs to be considered in future studies.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationADVANCES IN ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH, VOL 45: THE ROLE OF BODY SIZE IN MULTISPECIES SYSTEMS
EditorsA Belgrano, J Reiss
Place of PublicationSAN DIEGO
PublisherAcademic Press
Pages181-223
Number of pages43
ISBN (Print)978-0-12-386475-8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2011

Publication series

NameAdvances in Ecological Research
PublisherELSEVIER ACADEMIC PRESS INC
Volume45
ISSN (Print)0065-2504

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITY DESCRIPTION
  • ALLOMETRIC DEGREE DISTRIBUTIONS
  • FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY
  • TROPHIC POSITION
  • SECONDARY EXTINCTIONS
  • INTERACTION STRENGTH
  • BENTHIC COMMUNITIES
  • ECOSYSTEM PROCESSES
  • SPECIES ABUNDANCE
  • MARINE ECOSYSTEMS

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