dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaTopological structure and interaction strengths in model food webs
| Authors | Christopher Quince, Paul Higgs, Alan McKane |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | q-bio/0402014 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0402014 |
Abstract
We report the results of carrying out a large number of simulations on a coevolutionary model of multispecies communities. A wide range of parameter values were investigated which allowed a rather complete picture of the change in behaviour of the model as these parameters were varied to be built up. Our main interest was in the nature of the community food webs constructed via the simulations. We identify the range of parameter values which give rise to realistic food webs and give arguments which allow some of the structure which is found to be understood in an intuitive way. Since the webs are evolved according to the rules of the model, the strengths of the predator-prey links are not determined a priori, and emerge from the process of constructing the web. We measure the distribution of these link strengths, and find that there are a large number of weak links, in agreement with recent suggestions. We also review some of the data on food webs available in the literature, and make some tentative comparisons with our results. The difficulties of making such comparisons and the possible future developments of the model are also briefly discussed.
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"abstract": "We report the results of carrying out a large number of simulations on a\ncoevolutionary model of multispecies communities. A wide range of parameter\nvalues were investigated which allowed a rather complete picture of the change\nin behaviour of the model as these parameters were varied to be built up. Our\nmain interest was in the nature of the community food webs constructed via the\nsimulations. We identify the range of parameter values which give rise to\nrealistic food webs and give arguments which allow some of the structure which\nis found to be understood in an intuitive way. Since the webs are evolved\naccording to the rules of the model, the strengths of the predator-prey links\nare not determined a priori, and emerge from the process of constructing the\nweb. We measure the distribution of these link strengths, and find that there\nare a large number of weak links, in agreement with recent suggestions. We also\nreview some of the data on food webs available in the literature, and make some\ntentative comparisons with our results. The difficulties of making such\ncomparisons and the possible future developments of the model are also briefly\ndiscussed.",
"arxiv_id": "q-bio/0402014",
"authors": [
"Christopher Quince",
"Paul Higgs",
"Alan McKane"
],
"categories": [
"q-bio.PE",
"cond-mat.stat-mech"
],
"title": "Topological structure and interaction strengths in model food webs",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0402014"
},
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