Lake Food Webs: Properties and Artifacts

我们建议收集一些最详细和 完整的食物网数据收集，并使用这些数据， 评估、扩展和整合食物网理论。 数据将 从几个被研究得最透彻的生态系统中收集来的 包括太浩湖、城堡湖和清澈的湖水， 加州和新罕布什尔州的镜湖。 在构建 这些湖泊的食物网，我们将强调完整的物种 列表（几个网站将包括500多个物种），甚至 生产者、消费者和分解者的解析，以及估计 物种的优势和营养的优势 交互. 有了这些数据，我们将评估 食物网结构的规模（数据的范围和分辨率）， 扩展食物网理论，更精确地解释真实的食物 网（即，食物网的数量级 物种比目前的食物网收集）和整合 食物网理论，通过描述二元之间的互补性 食物的描述和功能优先描述 网。 我们将研究主要的食物网模式，包括 连接度，每种连接数，链长， 顶生种、中生种和基生种。 这些数据也将用于 特别是为了检验几个有关食物网的假设 结构包括中间营养状态假说， 恒定连通性假设，如前所述 规模和聚集对食物网结构的影响。 I较大 该提案的目标包括改进程序， 构建食物网，整合食物网理论， 使用结构（二进制）和函数组合数据 相同系统的方法。 这些研究将有助于 促进明显需要的互动和整合， 理论和实用主义的发展，这一重要的子学科 生态学。

We propose to assemble some of the most detailed and complete food web data yet collected, and use these data to evaluate, extend, and integrate food web theory. Data will be collected from several of the most thoroughly studied ecosystems in the world including Lake Tahoe, Castle Lake, and Clear Lake in California, and Mirror Lake in New Hampshire. In constructing food webs for these lakes we will emphasize complete species lists (several webs will include over 500 species), even resolution of producers, consumers and decomposers, and estimates of the dominance of species and strengths of trophic interactions. With these data we will evaluate the effects of scale (extent and resolution of the data) on food web structure, extend food web theory to more precisely account for real food webs (i.e., food webs with at least an order of magnitude more species than those in current food web collections) and integrate food web theory by delineating the complementarily between binary descriptions and functionally prioritized descriptions of food webs. We will examine major food web patterns including connectance, links per species, chain length, and proportions of top, intermediate and basal species. The data will also be used specifically to test several pertinent hypotheses about food web structure including the intermediate trophic state hypothesis, the constant connectance hypothesis, and previously described effects of scale and aggregation on food web structure. I Larger goals of this proposal include improving procedures for constructing food webs and integrating food web theory by assembling data using both structural (binary) and functional approaches for the same systems. These studies will help stimulate the clearly needed interaction and integration of theory and empiricism for development of this vital subdiscipline of ecology.