Synthesising the Relationships Between Food Web Structure and Robustness
For many decades, ecologists have sought to understand the extent to which species losses lead to secondary extinctions—that is, the additional loss of species that occurs when resources or key interactions are lost (i.e. robustness). In particular, ecologists aim to identify generalisable rules that explain which types of food webs are more or less robust to secondary extinctions. Food web structure, or the patterns formed by species and their interactions, has been extensively studied as a potential factor that influences robustness to species loss. We systematically reviewed 28 studies to identify the relationships between food web structure and robustness to species loss and how the conclusions depend on methodological differences. Contrary to popular belief and theory, we found relatively consistent, positive relationships between connectance and robustness, among other generalities. Yet, we also found that conflicting conclusions about structure‐robustness relationships can be, in part, attributed to differences in the type of data that studies use, particularly studies that use empirical data versus those generated from theoretical models. This review points towards a need to standardise methodology to answer the open question of whether robustness and its relationship with food web structure and to provide applicable insights for managing complex systems.
No keywords indexed for this article. Browse by subject →
Mário Almeida‐Neto, Paulo Guimarães, Paulo R Guimarães et al.
Alva Curtsdotter, Amrei Binzer, Ulrich Brose et al.
Jennifer A. Dunne, Richard J. Williams, Neo D. Martinez
Bo Ebenman, Tomas Jonsson
ANNA EKLÖF, Bo Ebenman
Showing 50 of 104 references
Samuel R. P.‐J. Ross, Ceres Barros · 2026
- Published
- Oct 01, 2024
- Vol/Issue
- 27(10)
- License
- View
You May Also Like
Antoine Guisan, Wilfried Thuiller · 2005
5,067 citations
Nicholas J. Gotelli, Robert K. Colwell · 2001
4,871 citations
M. A. Leibold, M. Holyoak · 2004
4,347 citations
Marcel G. A. van der Heijden, Richard D. Bardgett · 2007
4,047 citations
James J. Elser, Matthew E.S. Bracken · 2007
3,861 citations