A patch-dynamic framework for food web metacommunities |
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Authors: | Pradeep Pillai Michel Loreau Andrew Gonzalez |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205 ave Docteur Penfield, Montreal, QC, H3A 1B1, Canada |
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Abstract: | The metacommunity concept has proved to be a valuable tool for studying how space can affect the properties and assembly of
competitive communities. However, the concept has not been as extensively applied to the study of food webs or trophically
structured communities. Here, we demonstrate how to develop a modelling framework that permits food webs to be considered
from a spatial perspective. We do this by broadening the classic metapopulation patch-dynamic framework so that it can also
account for trophic interactions between many species and patches. Unlike previous metacommunity models, we argue that this
requires a system of equations to track the changing patch occupancy of the various species interactions, not the patch occupancy
of individual species. We then suggest how this general theoretical framework can be used to study complex and spatially extended
food web metacommunities. |
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