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Universal Patterns in Food Webs?

Explore the research by Camacho et al. on common traits in food web networks, using a niche model to analyze data from 7 food webs. The model involves niche parameters, prey consumption ranges, and predictions for prey and predator probabilities. The study challenges previous hypotheses and offers a single functional form for various food web properties. Discover how the model yielded accurate predictions across different networks without fitting parameters. Follow-up studies extended the analysis to additional datasets, revealing interesting insights and highlighting differences in functional forms due to data collection nuances or specialized webs.

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Universal Patterns in Food Webs?

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  1. Universal Patterns in Food Webs? Benjamin Good

  2. Perhaps an exampleof May’s warning againsttheoretical physicistsin biology? What is the evidence? • Paper by Camacho et al. claims to demonstrate some traits common to all food web networks • Uses the niche model to make theoretical predictions and then compares predictions to data from 7 different food webs

  3. The Model • “Niche Parameter” chosen byni=random(0,1), i=1,…,S • Species eat prey in a range given byri=xni wherep(x) = b(1-x)(b-1) , 0 < x < 1, andb=(S2/2L – 1) • This range centered on ci=random(ri/2, ni) • Hence, a list of prey or a list of predators can be calculated for each species Sample Web

  4. Again note the placeof publication… The Predictions • In another paper, they used this model to derive expressions for Pprey(k) and Ppred(k) • Pprey(k) is the probabilitythat a given species hask or more prey, Ppred(k) isthe probability that aspecies has k or more predators.

  5. Initial Results • Using data from the St. Martin Island web, with an empirically measured value for z, the data fit the model quite well. • No fitting parameters at all!

  6. Taking the idea further… • Instead of the distribution of number of prey, they use the “scaled number of prey” k/2z and the “scaled number of predators” m/2z and obtain: • Now the same function works for all 7 food webs – and still without any fitting parameters!

  7. … and further • By pooling the data from all 7 webs, they construct a “master plot”:… again with no fit parameters

  8. Haven’t seen a fit this good since… … especially when compared to the modelswe have been dealing with so far.

  9. Other predictions… Amazingly, the same model predictsseveral other network characteristicsquite well: number of links per species, raverage distance, dclustering coefficient, C

  10. Compared to older studies • Rejects the scale-free hypothesis that had been established earlier • Also rejects the small world hypothesis for food webs • Hypothesizes a single functional form for various food web properties

  11. Response to this article… • A later study by Dunne, Williams, and Martinez extended the data to include 16 data sets in total.

  12. Results from Dunne, et al Three differentfunctional forms(instead of 1)

  13. Yet some similarities remain… • Confirmed the earlierresults for a certain levelof connectedness • Also rejected bothscale-free and small-worldhypotheses • Some of the differencesin functional form attributedto poor data collectionor extremely specializedwebs

  14. The End

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