Anti-predator defence and the complexity-stability relationship of food webs.

ABSTRACT: The mechanism for maintaining complex food webs has been a central issue in ecology because theory often predicts that complexity (higher the species richness, more the interactions) destabilizes food webs. Although it has been proposed that prey anti-predator defence may affect the stability of prey-predator dynamics, such studies assumed a limited and relatively simpler variation in the food-web structure. Here, using mathematical models, I report that food-web flexibility arising from prey anti-predator defence enhances community-level stability (community persistence and robustness) in more complex systems and even changes the complexity-stability relationship. The model analysis shows that adaptive predator-specific defence enhances community-level stability under a wide range of food

SUBMITTER: Kondoh M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2169284 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature