Valandro, Luca and Caimmmi, Roberto and Matsinos, YG and Secco, Emanuele Lindo (2021) Ecological Community’s “Trophic Level Extreme” from Vulnerability Link Distributions & Energetic Pathways. Research in Zoology, 11 (1). ISSN 2325-002X (Accepted for Publication)
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Abstract
Complexity of complete ancient and modern food webs assumed to capture essential forests network trophic
topology scales similarly to that of ancient and modern lake webs and communities from variable environments. Reasona-
bly these groupings and patterns are not exclusively driven by environmental fluctuating conditions. Unexpectedly, dispar-
ate aquatic and terrestrial communities can belong to the same connectional trend with network size whose nodes represent
the number of trophic species. Although some aquatic communities can host apex predators at higher Trophic Levels than
terrestrial ones, it is not clear if this relates to different connectance or hierarchical structure.
OBJECTIVES
In this study we analyzed, reviewing literature trophic webs, Extreme number of Trophic Levels data and
their relationship with trophic link distributions (vulnerability and surrogate energetic parameters). Furthermore, we report
about a gap on the number of energetic pathways at a threshold modal Trophic Level. General differences, among aquatic
and terrestrial communities, in primary consumers fractions or percentages were tested.
METHODS
A new network approach to food webs was presented to interpret maximum chain length or extreme Trophic
Levels from matrix information and few assumptions. Two opposite logarithmic trends were analyzed, and sigmoid models
were utilized to predict missing predatory links in large cumulative food networks.
RESULTS
The main results are the presentation of two opposite trends of link density vs topological connectance in
log log correlation analysis where communities belonging to different eco regions of the richest lake in terms of trophic
species ( i.e., Lake Malawy Nya sa Niassa) were submitted to further scrutiny for the interpretation of their maximum chain
length. Herbivore’s Fraction 1 equal the number of Trophic Levels in newly defined size ambivalent communities that are
characterized by relatively small number of species but displaying the same complexity pattern of species rich ones.
CONCLUSION
Maximum number of Trophic Levels of ecological communities from different habitats could be associated with extrapolated link density obtained by the trends of vulnerability link and surrogate energetic link distributions.
Top down and bottom up control w ere discussed under this new perspective where ubiquitous anti predatory strategies,
inferred by reduction in trophic links, were also estimated. This wide new perspective could be preparatory for the interpretation of the effects of changing scenarios or contexts and habitat/species safeguard
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Faculty / Department: | Faculty of Human and Digital Sciences > Mathematics and Computer Science |
| Depositing User: | Emanuele Secco |
| Date Deposited: | 10 Nov 2021 10:05 |
| Last Modified: | 31 Dec 2021 01:15 |
| URI: | https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/3412 |
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