Provision of essential resources as a persistence strategy in food webs
Pairwise interactions in food webs, including those between predator and prey are often modulated by a third species. Such higher-order interactions are important structural components of natural food webs that can increase the stability of communities against perturbations and ensure continued ecos...
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2023-09-01
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| Online Access: | https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.315/ |
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| author | Raatz, Michael |
| author_facet | Raatz, Michael |
| author_sort | Raatz, Michael |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Pairwise interactions in food webs, including those between predator and prey are often modulated by a third species. Such higher-order interactions are important structural components of natural food webs that can increase the stability of communities against perturbations and ensure continued ecosystem functioning. Particularly the flux of rare organic and inorganic compounds that are essential to species in the community can create higher-order interactions. Even though many such compounds exist, their effect on structuring communities is little understood. In this study, I perform invasion analyses on a general food web model that depicts apparent and exploitative competition. Introducing the provision of essential resources by a prey species to either its competitor or its predator as a higher-order interaction, I find that this mechanism can ensure the focal prey’s persistence. Larger dietary essentiality, i.e. a stronger dependence of the predator or the competitor on the essential resource can increase the invasion growth rate of the focal prey to positive values, thus promoting its persistence when it would go extinct for low essentiality. This research shows that essential resources and the higher-order interactions created by them should be considered in community ecology.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-fd3c2eba32114d04a8fab060912b8c55 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2804-3871 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2023-09-01 |
| publisher | Peer Community In |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Peer Community Journal |
| spelling | doaj-art-fd3c2eba32114d04a8fab060912b8c552025-02-07T10:16:49ZengPeer Community InPeer Community Journal2804-38712023-09-01310.24072/pcjournal.31510.24072/pcjournal.315Provision of essential resources as a persistence strategy in food webs Raatz, Michael0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6968-6560Department of Theoretical Biology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, GermanyPairwise interactions in food webs, including those between predator and prey are often modulated by a third species. Such higher-order interactions are important structural components of natural food webs that can increase the stability of communities against perturbations and ensure continued ecosystem functioning. Particularly the flux of rare organic and inorganic compounds that are essential to species in the community can create higher-order interactions. Even though many such compounds exist, their effect on structuring communities is little understood. In this study, I perform invasion analyses on a general food web model that depicts apparent and exploitative competition. Introducing the provision of essential resources by a prey species to either its competitor or its predator as a higher-order interaction, I find that this mechanism can ensure the focal prey’s persistence. Larger dietary essentiality, i.e. a stronger dependence of the predator or the competitor on the essential resource can increase the invasion growth rate of the focal prey to positive values, thus promoting its persistence when it would go extinct for low essentiality. This research shows that essential resources and the higher-order interactions created by them should be considered in community ecology. https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.315/Higher-order interactionFood websFood qualityCoexistenceInvasibility |
| spellingShingle | Raatz, Michael Provision of essential resources as a persistence strategy in food webs Peer Community Journal Higher-order interaction Food webs Food quality Coexistence Invasibility |
| title | Provision of essential resources as a persistence strategy in food webs
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| title_full | Provision of essential resources as a persistence strategy in food webs
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| title_fullStr | Provision of essential resources as a persistence strategy in food webs
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| title_full_unstemmed | Provision of essential resources as a persistence strategy in food webs
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| title_short | Provision of essential resources as a persistence strategy in food webs
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| title_sort | provision of essential resources as a persistence strategy in food webs |
| topic | Higher-order interaction Food webs Food quality Coexistence Invasibility |
| url | https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.315/ |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT raatzmichael provisionofessentialresourcesasapersistencestrategyinfoodwebs |