Threshold extinction in food webs

Bellingeri, Michele; Bodini, Antonio

doi:10.1007/s12080-012-0166-0

Cited by 45 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…In dynamical approaches, however, a node cannot persist if it receives insufficient energy, even though it still has resources. This is in agreement with a recent study (Bellingeri & Bodini 2013), which investigated the effects of the thresholds of minimum energy requirement for species survival on the robustness of food webs. Top-down effects and other effects mediated by exploitative and apparent competition can also play an important role (Elmhagen & Rushton 2007;S€ aterberg et al 2013).…”

Section: (A) (B)supporting

confidence: 93%

“…This is also consistent with recent findings that increasing the energy threshold for consumer secondary extinction would nullify the previously positive relationship between robustness and binary directed connectance (Thierry et al . ; Bellingeri & Bodini ). The dynamical approach, through the weighting of links refines our understanding of the factors affecting network stability in ways that topological analyses cannot do because they assign equal importance to all connections in the network (Eklöf & Ebenman ; Curtsdotter et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

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Weighting and indirect effects identify keystone species in food webs

et al. 2016

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Species extinctions are accelerating globally, yet the mechanisms that maintain local biodiversity remain poorly understood. The extinction of species that feed on or are fed on by many others (i.e. ‘hubs’) has traditionally been thought to cause the greatest threat of further biodiversity loss. Very little attention has been paid to the strength of those feeding links (i.e. link weight) and the prevalence of indirect interactions. Here, we used a dynamical model based on empirical energy budget data to assess changes in ecosystem stability after simulating the loss of species according to various extinction scenarios. Link weight and/or indirect effects had stronger effects on food‐web stability than the simple removal of ‘hubs’, demonstrating that both quantitative fluxes and species dissipating their effects across many links should be of great concern in biodiversity conservation, and the potential for ‘hubs’ to act as keystone species may have been exaggerated to date.

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Section: (A) (B)supporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Weighting and indirect effects identify keystone species in food webs

et al. 2016

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“…The nodes in a network represent individuals, while edges represent the relationship between individuals. One of the most important phenomena found in the literature is that some networks such as the World Wide Web [1], the Internet [2], airplanes networks [3], metabolic networks [4], protein-protein networks [5], and ecology networks [6,7], are different from exponential random networks [8]. All of them have a power-law degree distribution P(k) ∼ k −γ with an exponent γ ranges in the scope of [2,3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New attack strategies for complex networks

Nie

Guo

Zhao

et al. 2015

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

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“…We suggest that future studies take into account that marginal reductions in habitat availability (the focus of threshold studies) likely interact with other processes to influence extinction probability. Secondary extinctions induced by loss of biodiversity and shifts in trophic levels might be more probable in many cases (Komonen et al, 2000;Bellingeri & Bodini, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional variability in extinction thresholds for forest birds in the north‐eastern United States: an examination of potential drivers using long‐term breeding bird atlas datasets

Hoek

Wilson

Renfrew³

et al. 2015

Diversity and Distributions

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Aim Demand for quantitative conservation targets has yielded a search for generalities in habitat thresholds, particular amounts of habitat at which extinction probabilities change strongly. These thresholds are thought to vary across regions, but investigation of this variability has been limited. We tested whether thresholds (of forest separating extinction from persistence) increased as either average forest cover in landscapes decreased or the degree of fragmentation increased. Location Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Vermont. Methods We used segmented logistic regressions to estimate thresholds in the relationship between extinction probability and forest cover for 25 forest‐breeding birds, comparing estimated thresholds across states. We also selected landscapes from our entire study area in which landscape‐level forest cover and degree of fragmentation varied independently and compared thresholds. Results We found that thresholds in extinction probability varied widely among species (7–90% forest cover) and within species across states [e.g. 12–90% for white‐throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis)]. Additional analyses showed no indications that thresholds correlated with the degree of fragmentation or forest cover across the landscape; we found considerable variability in thresholds across landscapes, species and even landscapes in which (average) fragmentation and forest cover were similar. Main conclusions Extinction threshold estimates varied tremendously across species and landscapes. Thus, habitat thresholds are difficult to generalize as they depend on many factors beyond landscape fragmentation and habitat availability (e.g. landscape characteristics such as matrix quality). Our findings highlight the need to avoid oversimplification and generalization of habitat thresholds, especially as they might prove counterproductive to conservation efforts. Instead, we propose that we evaluate thresholds for individual species – preferably using species‐centred habitat definitions in threshold modelling – to derive generalities for ecological and conservation applications.

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Threshold extinction in food webs

Cited by 45 publications

References 43 publications

Weighting and indirect effects identify keystone species in food webs

Weighting and indirect effects identify keystone species in food webs

New attack strategies for complex networks

Regional variability in extinction thresholds for forest birds in the north‐eastern United States: an examination of potential drivers using long‐term breeding bird atlas datasets

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