Abstract
The length of the food chain has been considered to be a key characteristic of food webs, and therefore understanding its determinants is becoming increasingly important for ecosystem management and the conservation of biodiversity. For this purpose, we propose an evolutionary network model of food webs that captures the essential features of the ones in the real world. The results show some universal features of food webs, including the fractions of top, intermediate, and basal species in the webs, which are in good agreement with empirical data. We will discuss how this structure can emerge in a simple evolutionary model of food webs.
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Ochiai, H., Suzuki, R. & Arita, T. Self-organizing stability of the food web that emerges from the evolution of restrictions on speciation. Artif Life Robotics 16, 523–525 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-011-0979-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-011-0979-8