TY - JOUR A1 - Pennekamp, Frank A1 - Iles, Alison C. A1 - Garland, Joshua A1 - Brennan, Georgina A1 - Brose, Ulrich A1 - Gaedke, Ursula A1 - Jacob, Ute A1 - Kratina, Pavel A1 - Matthews, Blake A1 - Munch, Stephan A1 - Novak, Mark A1 - Palamara, Gian Marco A1 - Rall, Bjorn C. A1 - Rosenbaum, Benjamin A1 - Tabi, Andrea A1 - Ward, Colette A1 - Williams, Richard A1 - Ye, Hao A1 - Petchey, Owen L. T1 - The intrinsic predictability of ecological time series and its potential to guide forecasting JF - Ecological monographs : a publication of the Ecological Society of America. KW - empirical dynamic modelling KW - forecasting KW - information theory KW - permutation entropy KW - population dynamics KW - time series analysis Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/ecm.1359 SN - 0012-9615 SN - 1557-7015 VL - 89 IS - 2 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ryser, Remo A1 - Häussler, Johanna A1 - Stark, Markus A1 - Brose, Ulrich A1 - Rall, Björn C. A1 - Guill, Christian T1 - The biggest losers: habitat isolation deconsructs complex food webs from top to bottom JF - Proceedings of the Royal Society of London : B, Biological sciences N2 - Habitat fragmentation threatens global biodiversity. To date, there is only limited understanding of how the different aspects of habitat fragmentation (habitat loss, number of fragments and isolation) affect species diversity within complex ecological networks such as food webs. Here, we present a dynamic and spatially explicit food web model which integrates complex food web dynamics at the local scale and species-specific dispersal dynamics at the landscape scale, allowing us to study the interplay of local and spatial processes in metacommunities. We here explore how the number of habitat patches, i.e. the number of fragments, and an increase of habitat isolation affect the species diversity patterns of complex food webs (alpha-,beta-,gamma-, diversities). We specifically test whether there is a trophic dependency in the effect of these two factors on species diversity. In our model, habitat isolation is the main driver causing species loss and diversity decline. Our results emphasize that large-bodied consumer species at high trophic positions go extinct faster than smaller species at lower trophic levels, despite being superior dispersers that connect fragmented landscapes better. We attribute the loss of top species to a combined effect of higher biomass loss during dispersal with increasing habitat isolation in general, and the associated energy limitation in highly fragmented landscapes, preventing higher trophic levels to persist. To maintain trophic-complex and species-rich communities calls for effective conservation planning which considers the interdependence of trophic and spatial dynamics as well as the spatial context of a landscape and its energy availability. KW - food webs KW - allometry KW - bioenergetic model KW - metacommunity dynamics KW - dispersal mortality KW - landscape structure Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.1177 SN - 0962-8452 SN - 1471-2954 VL - 286 IS - 1908 PB - Royal Society CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Allhoff, Korinna Theresa A1 - Ritterskamp, Daniel A1 - Rall, Björn C. A1 - Drossel, Barbara A1 - Guill, Christian T1 - Evolutionary food web model based on body masses gives realistic networks with permanent species turnover JF - Scientific reports N2 - The networks of predator-prey interactions in ecological systems are remarkably complex, but nevertheless surprisingly stable in terms of long term persistence of the system as a whole. In order to understand the mechanism driving the complexity and stability of such food webs, we developed an eco-evolutionary model in which new species emerge as modifications of existing ones and dynamic ecological interactions determine which species are viable. The food-web structure thereby emerges from the dynamical interplay between speciation and trophic interactions. The proposed model is less abstract than earlier evolutionary food web models in the sense that all three evolving traits have a clear biological meaning, namely the average body mass of the individuals, the preferred prey body mass, and the width of their potential prey body mass spectrum. We observed networks with a wide range of sizes and structures and high similarity to natural food webs. The model networks exhibit a continuous species turnover, but massive extinction waves that affect more than 50% of the network are not observed. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/srep10955 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 5 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schneider, Florian D. A1 - Brose, Ulrich A1 - Rall, Björn C. A1 - Guill, Christian T1 - Animal diversity and ecosystem functioning in dynamic food webs JF - Nature Communications N2 - Species diversity is changing globally and locally, but the complexity of ecological communities hampers a general understanding of the consequences of animal species loss on ecosystem functioning. High animal diversity increases complementarity of herbivores but also increases feeding rates within the consumer guild. Depending on the balance of these counteracting mechanisms, species-rich animal communities may put plants under top-down control or may release them from grazing pressure. Using a dynamic food-web model with body-mass constraints, we simulate ecosystem functions of 20,000 communities of varying animal diversity. We show that diverse animal communities accumulate more biomass and are more exploitative on plants, despite their higher rates of intra-guild predation. However, they do not reduce plant biomass because the communities are composed of larger, and thus energetically more efficient, plant and animal species. This plasticity of community body-size structure reconciles the debate on the consequences of animal species loss for primary productivity. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12718 SN - 2041-1723 VL - 7 SP - 3129 EP - 3138 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Binzer, Amrei A1 - Guill, Christian A1 - Rall, Björn C. A1 - Brose, Ulrich T1 - Interactive effects of warming, eutrophication and size structure: impacts on biodiversity and food-web structure JF - Global change biology N2 - Warming and eutrophication are two of the most important global change stressors for natural ecosystems, but their interaction is poorly understood. We used a dynamic model of complex, size-structured food webs to assess interactive effects on diversity and network structure. We found antagonistic impacts: Warming increases diversity in eutrophic systems and decreases it in oligotrophic systems. These effects interact with the community size structure: Communities of similarly sized species such as parasitoid-host systems are stabilized by warming and destabilized by eutrophication, whereas the diversity of size-structured predator-prey networks decreases strongly with warming, but decreases only weakly with eutrophication. Nonrandom extinction risks for generalists and specialists lead to higher connectance in networks without size structure and lower connectance in size-structured communities. Overall, our results unravel interactive impacts of warming and eutrophication and suggest that size structure may serve as an important proxy for predicting the community sensitivity to these global change stressors. KW - complex food webs KW - extinctions KW - generalists KW - global change KW - size structure KW - specialists Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13086 SN - 1354-1013 SN - 1365-2486 VL - 22 SP - 220 EP - 227 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER -