A Critical Reexamination of Food Web Patterns in Real Ecosystems

本研究的中心目标是对生态系统营养结构的所谓经验“规律”进行批判性的重新评估。将组装第一个专门用于表示大型生态系统营养结构的全系统数据库。工作将集中在威斯康星州的小石湖。这代表了一个长期的研究地点，在那里已经收集了许多所需的信息，一个研究小组已经同意合作解决系统的营养结构。这项研究的议定书将包括对与湖泊有关的实地站进行长期访问，以便协调解决所涉及的主要子系统内部和之间的喂养关系。最初的重点将放在水生环境上，因为它代表了食物网法律所依据的系统的最大部分，而且因为在这里构建合理完整的食物网的机会可能是最高的。这些数据将比目前在食物网文献中可用的数据至少有一个数量级的改进。这项研究将包括的细节包括：对所涉及的物种及其摄食强度进行全面和更公平的解决；食物网结构随季节和个体发生的时间变化聚合网络中能量和物质流动的大小；交互强度;研究不完全子系统对食物网格局的影响以及食物网结构的变化与主要到次要相互作用的系统结合。将被问到的具体问题之一是，许多食物网概括所依据的数据如何代表真实系统？在这里，来自记录系统的可靠数据将被用于统计检验一大批可疑数据是否可信。

The central aim of this research is to provide a critical reappraisal of so-called empirical "laws" for trophic structure in ecosystems. The first whole-system data base designed specifically to represent the trophic structure of a large-scale ecosystem will be assembled. Efforts will be focused on Little Rock Lake, Wisconsin. This represents a long-term study site where much of the desired information has already been gathered and where a research team has agreed to collaborate to resolve the trophic structure of the system. The protocol for this study will involve an extended visit to the field station associated with the lake in order to coordinate the resolution of feeding relations within and between the major subsystems involved. The initial focus will be on the aquatic environment because it represents the largest fraction of the systems upon which the food web laws are based, and because the chance of constructing reasonable complete food webs is likely to be highest here. These data will represent at lease an order of magnitude improvement over what is currently available in the food web literature. Among the details that will be included in this study are: a full and more even-handed resolution of species involved and their feeding intensities; temporal variability in food web structure with season and ontogeny; the magnitudes of energy and material flows in aggregated webs; interaction strength; the effects on food web patterns of studying incomplete subsystems; and the variation in food web structure with the systematic incorporation of major to minor interactions. Among the specific questions that will be asked is how representative of real systems are the data upon which many food web generalizations are based? Here, credible data from the documented systems will be used to statistically test whether a large collection of questionable data are to be believed.