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Pringle RM, Hutchinson MC. Resolving Food-Web Structure. ANNUAL REVIEW OF ECOLOGY, EVOLUTION, AND SYSTEMATICS 2020. [DOI: 10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-110218-024908] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Food webs are a major focus and organizing theme of ecology, but the data used to assemble them are deficient. Early debates over food-web data focused on taxonomic resolution and completeness, lack of which had produced spurious inferences. Recent data are widely believed to be much better and are used extensively in theoretical and meta-analytic research on network ecology. Confidence in these data rests on the assumptions ( a) that empiricists correctly identified consumers and their foods and ( b) that sampling methods were adequate to detect a near-comprehensive fraction of the trophic interactions between species. Abundant evidence indicates that these assumptions are often invalid, suggesting that most topological food-web data may remain unreliable for inferences about network structure and underlying ecological and evolutionary processes. Morphologically cryptic species are ubiquitous across taxa and regions, and many trophic interactions routinely evade detection by conventional methods. Molecular methods have diagnosed the severity of these problems and are a necessary part of the cure.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert M. Pringle
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Matthew C. Hutchinson
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
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Meyhoff SD, Johnson DL, Bazinet S. Fall diet in sharp-tailed grouse (Tympanuchus phasianellus jamesi) and consumption of the grasshopper Melanoplus dawsoni in Alberta, Canada. FOOD WEBS 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.fooweb.2020.e00153] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
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