Sea urchin consumption of kelp controlled by the density of drift algae
Rocky reef kelp forests can exhibit abrupt shifts between forested and barren states where unchecked sea urchin grazing inhibits kelp recovery. Forefront to urchin barren …
FracFeed: Global database of the fraction of feeding predators
The proportion of individuals that are found to have empty stomachs during a survey of a predator population’s diet has been used as an indicator of the average individual’s state …
In defense of Type I functional responses: The frequency and population-dynamic effects of feeding on multiple prey at a time
Ecologists differ in the degree to which they consider the linear Type I functional response to be an unrealistic versus sufficient representation of predator feeding rates. …
Simple, universal rules predict trophic interaction strengths
Many critical drivers of ecological systems exhibit regular scaling relationships, yet, often, the underlying mechanisms explaining these relationships are unknown. Trophic …
Body mass–biomass scaling modulates species keystone-ness to press perturbations
Identifying species with disproportionate effects on other species under press perturbations is essential, yet how species traits drive their keystone-ness and how this depends on …
xiaoxiao-li
Age-prevalence curves in a multi-species parasite community
The relationship between infection prevalence and host age is informative because it can reveal processes underlying disease dynamics. Most prior work has assumed that …
Corrigendum: Geometric complexity and the information-theoretic comparison of functional-response models
Due to an error in our formulation of the citardauq solution to quadratic equations, our reformulation of the Steady State Saturation (SSS) model of Jeschke et al. (2002) to a …
High variation in handling times confers 35-year stability to predator feeding rates despite community change
Historical resurveys of ecological communities are important for placing the structure of modern ecosystems in context. Rarely, however, are surveys alone sufficient for providing …
Predator feeding rates may often be unsaturated under typical prey densities
Predator feeding rates (described by their functional response) must saturate at high prey densities. Although thousands of manipulative functional response experiments show …
Grazer-resource behavior, interactions, and feedbacks control kelp-forest dynamics and stability
How the direct and indirect effects of species interactions cascade to affect community struc- ture, functioning, and stability is a fundamental question in ecology. In temperate …
The effects of formalin fixation and fluid storage on stable isotopes in rodent hair
Stable isotopes are increasingly being used to unlock the wealth of information contained in specimens preserved in museum collections. However, preservation methods that employ …
david-taylor
Geometric complexity and the information-theoretic comparison of functional-response models
The assessment of relative model performance using information criteria like AIC and BIC has become routine among functional-response studies, reflecting trends in the broader …
The predictability of qualitative food web dynamics in response to extinction and invasion
Food webs are extraordinarily complex, containing myriad direct interactions and indirect effects. Determining how this network of interactions and effects influences a food web’s …
Trematode parasites exceed aquatic insect biomass in Oregon stream food webs
Although parasites are increasingly recognized for their ecosystem roles, it is often assumed that free-living organisms dominate animal biomass in most ecosystems and therefore …
Systematic bias in studies of consumer functional responses
Functional responses are a cornerstone to our understanding of consumer-resource interactions, so how to best describe them using models has been actively debated. Here we focus on …
Quantifying the effects of intraspecific variation on predator feeding rates through nonlinear averaging
Theory suggests that intraspecific trait variation will alter species interaction strengths through nonlinear averaging when interaction strengths are nonlinear functions of …
Hidden layers of density dependence in consumer feeding rates
Functional responses relate a consumer's feeding rates to variation in its abiotic and biotic environment, providing insight into consumer behaviour and fitness, and underpinning …
daniel-stouffer
Food-web interaction strength distributions are conserved by greater variation between than within predator--prey pairs
Species interactions in food webs are usually recognized as dynamic, varying across species, space, and time because of biotic and abiotic drivers. Yet food webs also show …
What drives interaction strengths in complex food webs? A test with feeding rates of a generalist stream predator
Describing the mechanisms that drive variation in species interaction strengths is central to understanding, predicting, and managing community dynamics. Multiple factors have been …
Candidate causes, consequences, and estimation of individual diet specialization
Diet variation among individuals within populations is widespread. Often diet dierences among individuals are attributable to obvious differences among individuals such as age, …
Using Survival Models to Estimate Invertebrate Prey Identification Times in a Generalist Stream Fish
Estimates of predator feeding rates are important for understanding trophic dynamics. One common method for quantifying feeding rates in fishes combines mass‐based diet data with …
Quantifying predator dependence in the functional response of generalist predators
A long‐standing debate concerns how functional responses are best described. Theory suggests that ratio dependence is consistent with many food web patterns left unexplained by …
Experimental demonstration of a trophic cascade in the Galápagos rocky subtidal: Effects of consumer identity and behavior
In diverse tropical webs, trophic cascades are presumed to be rare, as species interactions may dampen top-down control and reduce their prevalence. To test this hypothesis, we …
jon-witman
Contributions of parasites to energy flow through a stream food web
Parasites are increasingly recognized for their significant roles in shaping community structure and ecosystem dynamics. Due to their cryptic nature, however, they are often …
Bayesian characterization of uncertainty in species interaction strengths
Considerable effort has been devoted to the estimation of species interaction strengths. This effort has focused primarily on statistical significance testing and obtaining point …
Using stable isotopes to quantify species interaction strengths
Understanding ecological interaction strengths is one of the main objectives of ecology. Recently, two methods for estimating interaction strengths of predator- prey interactions …
Characterizing species interactions to understand press perturbations: What is the community matrix?
The community matrix is among ecology's most important mathematical abstractions, formally encapsulating the interconnected network of effects that species have on one another's …
Trophic omnivory across a productivity gradient: intraguild predation theory and the structure and strength of species interactions
Intraguild predation theory centres on two predictions: (i) for an omnivore and an intermediate predator (IG-prey) to coexist on shared resources, the IG-prey must be the superior …
Using the functional response of a consumer to predict biotic resistance to invasive prey
Predators sometimes provide biotic resistance against invasions by nonnative prey. Understanding and predicting the strength of biotic resistance remains a key challenge in …
laura-twardochleb
Probabilistic patterns of interaction: the effects of link-strength variability on food web structure
Patterns of species interactions affect the dynamics of food webs. An important component of species interactions that is rarely considered with respect to food webs is the …
justin-yeakel
Merging Resource Availability with Isotope Mixing Models: The Role of Neutral Interaction Assumptions
Bayesian mixing models have allowed for the inclusion of uncertainty and prior information in the analysis of trophic interactions using stable isotopes. Formulating prior …
justin-yeakel
Using experimental indices to quantify the strength of species interactions
Few methods for demonstrating the effects of species interactions rival that of the manipulative experiment (Kareiva and Levin 2002). The now commonly performed removal or …
Estimating interaction strengths in nature: experimental support for an observational approach
The complexity of food webs poses a significant hurdle for our growing understanding of the structure and dynamics of ecological communities. Empirical methods that measure the …
Trophic omnivory and the structure, strength, and nonlinear nature of species interactions across a productivity gradient
Two elements of food webs add significantly to their complexity: The presence of trophic omnivores and the nonlinear nature of predator-prey interactions. I introduce a new …
Estimating nonlinear interaction strengths: an observation-based method for species-rich food webs
Efforts to estimate the strength of species interactions in species‐rich, reticulate food webs have been hampered by the multitude of direct and indirect interactions such systems …