Lake Food Webs: Properties and Artifacts

我们建议收集一些迄今为止收集到的最详细、最完整的食物网数据，并利用这些数据来评估、扩展和整合食物网理论。数据将从世界上研究最彻底的几个生态系统中收集，包括加州的太浩湖、城堡湖、清湖和新罕布什尔州的镜湖。在为这些湖泊构建食物网时，我们将强调完整的物种列表（一些网络将包括超过500个物种），甚至是生产者，消费者和分解者的解决方案，以及物种优势和营养相互作用强度的估计。有了这些数据，我们将评估尺度（数据的范围和分辨率）对食物网结构的影响，扩展食物网理论以更精确地解释真实的食物网(即，食物网的物种至少比目前的食物网多一个数量级)，并通过描述食物网的二元描述和功能优先描述之间的互补性来整合食物网理论。我们将研究主要的食物网模式，包括连通性，每个物种的链接，链长度，以及顶部，中间和基础物种的比例。这些数据还将专门用于测试关于食物网结构的几个相关假设，包括中间营养状态假设，恒定连接假设，以及先前描述的规模和聚集对食物网结构的影响。本提案的更大目标包括改进构建食物网的程序，并通过对同一系统使用结构（二元）和功能方法收集数据来整合食物网理论。这些研究将有助于促进理论和经验主义的互动和整合，以促进生态学这一重要分支学科的发展。

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.