Biology 3445F Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Coevolution, Omnivore, Species Richness
Document Summary
Food webs describe the feeding relationships between species in a community. Know: 2 hypothesis for connectance and link density: 4 hypothesis for chain length, small world path lengths, connectedness webs vs other quantitative webs (see image below) Source web: relations among species feeding on a single initial food source. Sink web: all relations due to consumption by a single predator (the sink) Community web: entire set of relations for a community. Food web ecology general trends: nodes = species (or functional feeding group, links are resource-consumer (predator-prey) interactions, food webs are better resolved at the top", green (plants) vs. brown (detritus) food webs. Different roles in food webs: top predators: have no predators, intermediate species: feed on others and are fed upon, basal species: are only fed upon. Other features (see picture below: igp differs from competition by energetic gains for one participant, also reduced potential exploitative competition.
