Fit, efficiency, and biology: Some thoughts on judging food web models

JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY

卷:279

Article

Petchey, Owen L.^1,2  Beckerman, Andrew P.²  Riede, Jens O.³  Warren, Philip H.² 

[1] Univ Zurich, Inst Evolutionary Biol & Environm Studies, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland

[2] Univ Sheffield, Western Bank, Dept Anim & Plant Sci, Sheffield S10 2TN, S Yorkshire, England

[3] Univ Gottingen, Syst Conservat Biol Grp, JF Blumenbach Inst Zool & Anthropol, D-3400 Gottingen, Germany

关键词: Foraging;    Energetics;    Static food web model;    Network;    Connectance;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jtbi.2011.03.019

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Revealing the processes that determine who eats whom, and thereby the structure of food webs, is a long running challenge in ecological research. Recent advances include development of new methods for measuring fit of models to observed food web data, and thereby testing which are the 'best' food web models. The best model could be considered the most efficient with relatively few parameters and high explanatory power. Another recent advance involves adding some additional biology to food web models in the form of foraging theory based on maximisation of energy intake as the predictor of species' diets in food webs. While it is interesting to compare efficiency among food web models, we believe that such comparisons at least should be interpreted with caution, since they do not account for any differences in motivation, formulation, and potential that might also exist among models. Furthermore, we see an important but somewhat neglected role for experimental tests of models of food web structure. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free