Weak trophic interactions and the balance of nature
Weak trophic interactions and the balance of nature
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DOI：
10.1038/27427
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发表时间：
1998-10-22
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Huxel, GR
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
McCann, K;Hastings, A;Huxel, GR
生态模型表明，复杂性通常会破坏食物网的稳定性(1,2)，并预测食物网不应聚集自然界中实际存在的大量相互作用的物种(3-5)。在这里，我们使用非线性模型研究相互作用强度（一种物种被另一种物种消耗的可能性）对远离平衡的食物网动态的影响。与之前的建议（1,6）一致，我们的结果表明弱到中等强度的链接对于促进社区的持久性和稳定性很重要。薄弱环节会抑制消费者和资源之间的波动。这往往会使人口密度远离零，从而减少人口灭绝的统计机会（人口密度较低更容易出现这种机会）。天然食物网相互作用强度的数据(7-11)表明，食物网相互作用强度的特点确实是许多弱相互作用和一些强相互作用。
Ecological models show that complexity usually destabilizes food webs(1,2), predicting that food webs should not amass the large numbers of interacting species that are in fact found in nature(3-5). Here, using nonlinear models, we study the influence of interaction strength (likelihood of consumption of one species by another) on food-web dynamics away from equilibrium. Consistent with previous suggestions(1,6), our results show that weak to intermediate strength links are important in promoting community persistence and stability. Weak links act to dampen oscillations between consumers and resources. This tends to maintain population densities further away from zero, decreasing the statistical chance that a population will become extinct (lower population densities are more prone to such chances). Data on interaction strengths in natural food webs(7-11) indicate that food-web interaction strengths are indeed characterized by many weak interactions and a few strong interactions.