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ON LUMPING SPECIES IN FOOD WEBS
Author(s) -
Solow Andrew R.,
Beet Andrew R.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.144
H-Index - 294
eISSN - 1939-9170
pISSN - 0012-9658
DOI - 10.1890/0012-9658(1998)079[2013:olsifw]2.0.co;2
Subject(s) - predation , food web , ecology , food chain , biology
Species in community food webs are commonly aggregated or lumped on the basis of overlap in predators and prey. This note reports an unexpected result of lumping species in observed food webs and simulated food webs. The main result is that it is much easier to lump species in observed webs than in simulated webs. The reason is that there is much more overlap in predators and prey for species in observed webs than in simulated webs. This points to a fundamental deficiency in web assembly models that assume a random distribution of links.