Food web structure in Mediterranean streams: exploring stabilizing forces in these ecosystems

Sánchez-Carmona, Ramona; Encina, Lourdes Encina; Rodríguez-Ruiz, Amadora; Rodríguez-Sánchez, Ma Victoria; Granado‐Lorencio, Carlos

doi:10.1007/s10452-012-9400-5

Cited by 16 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…These results are consistent with previous workers, who found that generalization is lower than vulnerability (Schoener 1989;. By contrast, Sánchez-Carmona et al (2012) have found that generalization exceeded vulnerability in Iberian stream food webs. It has been considered that when this occurs (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…Drawing of brown trout: Josué Sánchez Hernández. (Color figure online) literature (Tachet et al 2002;Oscoz et al 2011;Sánchez-Carmona et al 2012). In this study, special attention was paid to the age-specific differences in the consumption of invertebrate predators by brown trout because, in comparison to other functional feeding groups, invertebrate predator species are expected to be an important network connector increasing the number of feeding links.…”

Section: Food Web Constructionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Generalization (GenSD) and vulnerability (VulSD) were calculated as standard deviation of the number of resources per species and standard deviation of the number of consumers per species, respectively; that are widely reported (Sán-chez-Carmona et al 2012;Dunne et al 2013;Sán-chez-Hernández et al 2015). When generalization is higher than vulnerability, it means that there are few consumers with numerous prey and many consumers with a single prey (Sánchez-Carmona et al 2012). Besides, mean short-weighted trophic level (MeanSWTL) and mean shortest chain to a basal species (MeanShortChn) were calculated to address the energy flow of food webs.…”

Section: Food Web Constructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sánchez-Carmona et al 2012;Worischka et al 2014;. Additionally, many fish species have a high predation capacity and are able to feed on a large variety of taxa, thus increasing the number of feeding links in food webs .…”

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confidence: 97%

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Do age-related changes in feeding habits of brown trout alter structural properties of food webs?

Sánchez‐Hernández

2016

Aquat Ecol

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The aim of this study was to quantify changes in food webs based on ontogenetic dietary shifts of a top fish predator (here brown trout Salmo trutta L.). Here, the food web of a river in Central Spain (River Tormes) was studied to test the hypothesis that food web structural properties may change according to age-related changes in feeding habits of brown trout. Thus, the food web was established separately for age-0, age-1 and age-2 brown trout using a forward procedure (individual, modular and river networks); next the complete trophic networks were established. Overall, the networks were characterized by generalist predators with numerous prey types; specialized feeding was limited to a low number of taxa. Food web structural properties (number of links, connectance and linkage density) had the highest values in the age-1 scenario. The highest trophic level (i.e. the highest number of energy steps) was also found in the age-1 scenario, but the lowest in the age-0 scenario. Vulnerability and generalization tend to be higher in age-1 and age-0 scenarios, respectively. The present study exemplifies that agespecific brown trout predation on invertebrate predators emerged as the key factor to understand the changes in food web structural properties among age scenarios. I conclude that ontogenetic dietary shifts of brown trout promote changes in food web structural properties. This conclusion underscores the importance of considering different life history stages of species (i.e. to cover their ontogenetic dietary shifts) in food web construction.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Food Web Constructionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Food Web Constructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 97%

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Do age-related changes in feeding habits of brown trout alter structural properties of food webs?

Sánchez‐Hernández

2016

Aquat Ecol

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“…In fact, as shown in results, there is no correlation between S and the number of taxa with linkage density. Other authors (S anchez-Carmona et al 2012) pointed out a clear increase in linkage density with taxa richness in different Mediterranean streams. Nevertheless, our results also indicate temporal differences in link pattern within the same stream.…”

Section: The Food Web Of the Cac ıN Streammentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of the macroinvertebrate community and food web of a Mediterranean stream

Vannucchi

Peralta‐Maraver

Figueroa

et al. 2016

Journal of Freshwater Ecology

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Here, we analyse the annual dynamics in the diversity and the food web structure of the macroinvertebrate community in a Mediterranean permanent stream. Then, we also tested the validity of different proposed predictive models in their ability to fit our results. We calculated the Shannon-Wiener diversity index, the evenness, several food web properties and the proportion of functional feeding groups throughout the year. Our results showed a great variability of the studied parameters with time, mainly in terms of trophic relationships among macroinvertebrates. Diversity did not fluctuate substantially, but functional feeding groups did. In the same manner, complexity of the food web also varied substantially along the year. Comparisons with the considered models showed that, overall, none of the models predicted accurately the observed values. Nevertheless, within them, at least some estimated relatively realistic values, mainly when considering data monthly. From a functional point of view, collector-gatherers were the most abundant group throughout the sampling period except in autumn, when scrapers were also proportionally important. Predators were present during the entire period but with a low abundance. Thus, this study underlines the importance of considering not only static, but also dynamic data when studying food webs.

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Winter is coming: Food web structure and seasonality in a subtropical freshwater coastal lake

Peralta‐Maraver

Robertson

Rezende

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

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Food web studies provide a useful tool to assess the organization and complexity of natural communities. Nevertheless, the seasonal dynamics of food web properties, their environmental correlates, and potential association with community diversity and stability remain poorly studied. Here, we condensed an incomplete 6‐year community dataset of a subtropical coastal lake to examine how monthly variation in diversity impacts food web structure over an idealized time series for an averaged year. Phytoplankton, zooplankton, macroinvertebrates, and fish were mostly resolved to species level (n = 120 trophospecies). Our results showed that the seasonal organization of the food web could be aggregated into two clusters of months grouped here as ‘summer’ and ‘winter’. During ‘winter’, the food web decreases in size and complexity, with the number of trophospecies dropping from 106 to 82 (a 22.6% decrease in the number of nodes) and the trophic interactions from 1,049 to 637 between month extremes (a 39.3% drop in the number of links). The observed simplification in food web structure during ‘winter’ suggests that community stability is more vulnerable to the impact of any change during this period.

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Food web structure in Mediterranean streams: exploring stabilizing forces in these ecosystems

Cited by 16 publications

References 44 publications

Do age-related changes in feeding habits of brown trout alter structural properties of food webs?

Do age-related changes in feeding habits of brown trout alter structural properties of food webs?

Dynamics of the macroinvertebrate community and food web of a Mediterranean stream

Winter is coming: Food web structure and seasonality in a subtropical freshwater coastal lake

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