TY  - JOUR
A1  - Boit, Alice
A1  - Martinez, Neo D.
A1  - Williams, Richard J.
A1  - Gaedke, Ursula
T1  - Mechanistic theory and modelling of complex food-web dynamics in Lake Constance
JF  - Ecology letters
N2  - Mechanistic understanding of consumer-resource dynamics is critical to predicting the effects of global change on ecosystem structure, function and services. Such understanding is severely limited by mechanistic models inability to reproduce the dynamics of multiple populations interacting in the field. We surpass this limitation here by extending general consumer-resource network theory to the complex dynamics of a specific ecosystem comprised by the seasonal biomass and production patterns in a pelagic food web of a large, well-studied lake. We parameterised our allometric trophic network model of 24 guilds and 107 feeding relationships using the lakes food web structure, initial spring biomasses and body-masses. Adding activity respiration, the detrital loop, minimal abiotic forcing, prey resistance and several empirically observed rates substantially increased the model's fit to the observed seasonal dynamics and the size-abundance distribution. This process illuminates a promising approach towards improving food-web theory and dynamic models of specific habitats.
KW  - Allometric Trophic Network model
KW  - community ecology
KW  - food web
KW  - multi-trophic dynamics
KW  - seasonal plankton succession
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01777.x
SN  - 1461-023X
VL  - 15
IS  - 6
SP  - 594
EP  - 602
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  -