TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gross, Thilo
A1  - Allhoff, Korinna Theresa
A1  - Blasius, Bernd
A1  - Brose, Ulrich
A1  - Drossel, Barbara
A1  - Fahimipour, Ashkaan K.
A1  - Guill, Christian
A1  - Yeakel, Justin D.
A1  - Zeng, Fanqi
T1  - Modern models of trophic meta-communities
JF  - Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London : B, Biological sciences
N2  - Dispersal and foodweb dynamics have long been studied in separate models. However, over the past decades, it has become abundantly clear that there are intricate interactions between local dynamics and spatial patterns. Trophic meta-communities, i.e. meta-foodwebs, are very complex systems that exhibit complex and often counterintuitive dynamics. Over the past decade, a broad range of modelling approaches have been used to study these systems. In this paper, we review these approaches and the insights that they have revealed. We focus particularly on recent papers that study trophic interactions in spatially extensive settings and highlight the common themes that emerged in different models. There is overwhelming evidence that dispersal (and particularly intermediate levels of dispersal) benefits the maintenance of biodiversity in several different ways. Moreover, some insights have been gained into the effect of different habitat topologies, but these results also show that the exact relationships are much more complex than previously thought, highlighting the need for further research in this area. This article is part of the theme issue 'Integrative research perspectives on marine conservation'.
KW  - dispersal
KW  - meta-community
KW  - foodweb
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0455
SN  - 0962-8436
SN  - 1471-2970
VL  - 375
IS  - 1814
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  -