Trophic cascade direction and flow determine network flow stability

Canning, Adam D.; Death, Russell G.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2017.03.020

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…For example, weighted food webs are more sensitive to the loss of species with many direct and indirect effects than are binary food webs (Zhao et al 2016). Furthermore, ENA shows that indirect flow intensity is a key factor controlling energy flow stability (Canning and Death 2017), which is consistent with theoretical analyses that show that weak flows stabilize webs (Rooney and McCann 2012, Saint-Béat et al 2015, Mougi and Kondoh 2016. Hence, any process that affects the dominance or distribution of indirect flows within a food web may also influence its stability.…”

supporting

confidence: 83%

“…We defined dynamic stability as the percent of the original, pre-perturbed network energy throughflow (the sum of all flows within a network) that remains at a new steady state after 25% of the taxa Table 1. The location, altitude, stream order, distance between paired sites, particulate organic matter (POM, g/0.1 m 2 ): chlorophyll a (Chl a, lg/cm 2 ) ratio, and trophic network fragility for paired sites (one in upstream forest, the other in downstream grassland) at 10 Taranaki (New Zealand) ring-plain streams in the austral summer 2000. are lost randomly (Canning and Death 2017). We then used the average (AVG) approach from Allesina and Bondavalli (2003) to simulate the networks to a new mass-balanced steady state.…”

Section: Trophic Stability Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, the empirical studies that have been conducted on community stability have generally examined binary webs and assess only topological robustness (Solé andMontoya 2001, Dunne et al 2002). Inferences derived from simple binary webs may not be robust, however, because they ignore interaction strength and assume that trophic cascades occur solely from the bottom up, as species have been assumed extinct only once all prey are extinct, despite changes in higher trophic levels (Dunne et al 2005, Fox 2006, Gilbert 2009, Canning and Death 2017. It is therefore unclear whether these approaches yield realistic predictions of natural communities.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ecological network analysis (ENA) provides a toolbox of metrics that can be used to assess and better conceptualize complex weighted food webs (Ulanowicz 2004, Latham 2006. In addition, ENA allows users to simulate disturbances to empirically derived weighted food webs and predict potentially new stable states (i.e., webs are rebalanced so that inflows are equal to outflows) (Allesina andBondavalli 2003, Canning andDeath 2017). Weighted food webs analyzed with ENA may therefore provide a more realistic assessment of trophic network stability.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Forest canopy affects stream macroinvertebrate assemblage structure but not trophic stability

Canning¹,

Death²,

Gardner³

2019

Freshwater Science

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Understanding the determinates of community structure and function is a central theme in community ecology. The form in which energy is supplied to food webs can strongly influence community structure and function. Trophic stability is also thought to be affected by the nature of food web energy pathways and whether they are external (allochthonous) or internal (autochthonous) to the ecosystem. In this study, we assessed whether stream invertebrate assemblages differ in taxonomic composition, energetic network structure, trophic network stability, and assemblage temporal variability based on whether the streams they occupy occur under forested canopies or in open grasslands. We assumed that forested sites would receive more allochthonous inputs, whereas grassland sites would rely more on autochthonous resources. We also tested whether food web stability (robustness, the conservation of energy flow) changed after simulated species extinctions. We found that the forest stream assemblages were dominated by filter feeders and shredders, whereas the grassland assemblages were dominated by grazers. In spite of these differences in assemblage composition, we found no significant differences in trophic network structure, stability, or temporal variability among different site types. Many stream systems, particularly in mountainous areas, such as New Zealand, are exposed to regular and large physical disturbance from flooding, which may result in assemblages with similarly generic diets irrespective of the energy source.

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supporting

confidence: 83%

Section: Trophic Stability Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Forest canopy affects stream macroinvertebrate assemblage structure but not trophic stability

Canning¹,

Death²,

Gardner³

2019

Freshwater Science

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“…Broad diets allow alternative energy pathways to continue supporting predators should other pathways be perturbed; whereas the rigid and narrow diet of specialists may prevent the compensatory effects of alternative links (Sole & Montoya 2001, Dunne et al 2002a, Ulanowicz et al 2009). Long food chains may also reduce robustness because the loss of basal species will cascade further up the food chain, thereby impacting more species (Freedman & So 1985, Rooney et al 2006, Rooney & McCann 2012, Saint-Béat et al 2015, Canning & Death 2017.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food Web Structure but Not Robustness Differ Between Rivers, Lakes and Estuaries

Canning

Death

2019

Oecol. Aust.

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The pervading physical habitat differences between lakes, rivers, and estuaries should result in structural and thus stability differences in food webs in these three different aquatic habitats. We compared 24 metrics of food web structure and the robustness to loss of both well-connected and random species of 18 well-resolved food webs from six lakes, six rivers, and six estuaries. Robustness measures the proportion of species that need to be removed for 50% of all species to be lost/disconnected. Riverine food webs had lower neighborhood clustering and greater variability in prey vulnerability than estuaries and lakes. Typically, rivers experience physical disturbance relatively more frequently and with greater severity than estuaries and lakes. Disturbance may drive rivers to have lower clustering and have greater proportions of early successional taxa that are mobile and have little armor, and hence greater variability in their vulnerability to predation. Despite the observed differences in food web structure, these did not drive differences in modelled food web robustness between the three habitats. Similarities in robustness may be a result of freshwater organisms having similar body-size ratios between predator and prey/resource taxa thereby driving similar link distributions.

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The influence of nutrient enrichment on riverine food web function and stability

Canning

Death

2020

Ecology and Evolution

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Trophic cascade direction and flow determine network flow stability

Cited by 10 publications

References 58 publications

Forest canopy affects stream macroinvertebrate assemblage structure but not trophic stability

Forest canopy affects stream macroinvertebrate assemblage structure but not trophic stability

Food Web Structure but Not Robustness Differ Between Rivers, Lakes and Estuaries

The influence of nutrient enrichment on riverine food web function and stability

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