Food Webs

Food-web research has recently experienced a surge of activity fueled by new empirical data and innovative theories. Over the past decade and a half, food web has been equated to a large extent with food-web theory, a body of explanations for regularities observed in the features of simple food webs reported in the literature. In recent years, it has become clear that real food webs are much more complex and dynamic than was portrayed by earlier studies. Current research documents the complexity and variability of food webs, and seeks to explain patterns in the structure and function of food webs. Moreover, the integration of food-web patterns with ecological dynamics has become a major goal that ultimately will link food webs with other levels of the biological hierarchy. Major issues covered by the book include: the role of nutrients, detritus and microbes in food webs; indirect effects in food webs; the interaction of productivity and consumption; linking cause and effect in food webs; temporal and spatial scales of food-web dynamics; applications of food webs to pest management, fisheries, and ecosystem stress.