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The inverse niche model for food webs with parasites
Although parasites represent an important component of ecosystems, few field and theoretical studies have addressed the structure of parasites in food webs. We evaluate the structure of parasitic links in an extensive salt marsh food web, with a new model distinguishing parasitic links from non-para...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer Netherlands
2010
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270433/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25540673 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12080-009-0069-x |
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author | Warren, Christopher P. Pascual, Mercedes Lafferty, Kevin D. Kuris, Armand M. |
author_facet | Warren, Christopher P. Pascual, Mercedes Lafferty, Kevin D. Kuris, Armand M. |
author_sort | Warren, Christopher P. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Although parasites represent an important component of ecosystems, few field and theoretical studies have addressed the structure of parasites in food webs. We evaluate the structure of parasitic links in an extensive salt marsh food web, with a new model distinguishing parasitic links from non-parasitic links among free-living species. The proposed model is an extension of the niche model for food web structure, motivated by the potential role of size (and related metabolic rates) in structuring food webs. The proposed extension captures several properties observed in the data, including patterns of clustering and nestedness, better than does a random model. By relaxing specific assumptions, we demonstrate that two essential elements of the proposed model are the similarity of a parasite’s hosts and the increasing degree of parasite specialization, along a one-dimensional niche axis. Thus, inverting one of the basic rules of the original model, the one determining consumers’ generality appears critical. Our results support the role of size as one of the organizing principles underlying niche space and food web topology. They also strengthen the evidence for the non-random structure of parasitic links in food webs and open the door to addressing questions concerning the consequences and origins of this structure. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12080-009-0069-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4270433 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2010 |
publisher | Springer Netherlands |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-42704332014-12-22 The inverse niche model for food webs with parasites Warren, Christopher P. Pascual, Mercedes Lafferty, Kevin D. Kuris, Armand M. Theor Ecol Original Paper Although parasites represent an important component of ecosystems, few field and theoretical studies have addressed the structure of parasites in food webs. We evaluate the structure of parasitic links in an extensive salt marsh food web, with a new model distinguishing parasitic links from non-parasitic links among free-living species. The proposed model is an extension of the niche model for food web structure, motivated by the potential role of size (and related metabolic rates) in structuring food webs. The proposed extension captures several properties observed in the data, including patterns of clustering and nestedness, better than does a random model. By relaxing specific assumptions, we demonstrate that two essential elements of the proposed model are the similarity of a parasite’s hosts and the increasing degree of parasite specialization, along a one-dimensional niche axis. Thus, inverting one of the basic rules of the original model, the one determining consumers’ generality appears critical. Our results support the role of size as one of the organizing principles underlying niche space and food web topology. They also strengthen the evidence for the non-random structure of parasitic links in food webs and open the door to addressing questions concerning the consequences and origins of this structure. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12080-009-0069-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer Netherlands 2010-01-27 2010 /pmc/articles/PMC4270433/ /pubmed/25540673 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12080-009-0069-x Text en © The Author(s) 2010 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Original Paper Warren, Christopher P. Pascual, Mercedes Lafferty, Kevin D. Kuris, Armand M. The inverse niche model for food webs with parasites |
title | The inverse niche model for food webs with parasites |
title_full | The inverse niche model for food webs with parasites |
title_fullStr | The inverse niche model for food webs with parasites |
title_full_unstemmed | The inverse niche model for food webs with parasites |
title_short | The inverse niche model for food webs with parasites |
title_sort | inverse niche model for food webs with parasites |
topic | Original Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270433/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25540673 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12080-009-0069-x |
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