The probabilistic niche model reveals the niche structure and role of body size in a complex food web.
The niche model has been widely used to model the structure of complex food webs, and yet the ecological meaning of the single niche dimension has not been explored. In the niche model, each species has three traits, niche position, diet position and feeding range. Here, a new probabilistic niche mo...
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2010-08-01
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doaj-0c9fec5f717e4e27a9211f5e893abd532020-11-25T01:22:08ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032010-08-0158e1209210.1371/journal.pone.0012092The probabilistic niche model reveals the niche structure and role of body size in a complex food web.Richard J WilliamsAnanthi AnandanadesanDrew PurvesThe niche model has been widely used to model the structure of complex food webs, and yet the ecological meaning of the single niche dimension has not been explored. In the niche model, each species has three traits, niche position, diet position and feeding range. Here, a new probabilistic niche model, which allows the maximum likelihood set of trait values to be estimated for each species, is applied to the food web of the Benguela fishery. We also developed the allometric niche model, in which body size is used as the niche dimension. About 80% of the links in the empirical data are predicted by the probabilistic niche model, a significant improvement over recent models. As in the niche model, species are uniformly distributed on the niche axis. Feeding ranges are exponentially distributed, but diet positions are not uniformly distributed below the predator. Species traits are strongly correlated with body size, but the allometric niche model performs significantly worse than the probabilistic niche model. The best-fit parameter set provides a significantly better model of the structure of the Benguela food web than was previously available. The methodology allows the identification of a number of taxa that stand out as outliers either in the model's poor performance at predicting their predators or prey or in their parameter values. While important, body size alone does not explain the structure of the one-dimensional niche.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC2918514?pdf=render |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Richard J Williams Ananthi Anandanadesan Drew Purves |
spellingShingle |
Richard J Williams Ananthi Anandanadesan Drew Purves The probabilistic niche model reveals the niche structure and role of body size in a complex food web. PLoS ONE |
author_facet |
Richard J Williams Ananthi Anandanadesan Drew Purves |
author_sort |
Richard J Williams |
title |
The probabilistic niche model reveals the niche structure and role of body size in a complex food web. |
title_short |
The probabilistic niche model reveals the niche structure and role of body size in a complex food web. |
title_full |
The probabilistic niche model reveals the niche structure and role of body size in a complex food web. |
title_fullStr |
The probabilistic niche model reveals the niche structure and role of body size in a complex food web. |
title_full_unstemmed |
The probabilistic niche model reveals the niche structure and role of body size in a complex food web. |
title_sort |
probabilistic niche model reveals the niche structure and role of body size in a complex food web. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
series |
PLoS ONE |
issn |
1932-6203 |
publishDate |
2010-08-01 |
description |
The niche model has been widely used to model the structure of complex food webs, and yet the ecological meaning of the single niche dimension has not been explored. In the niche model, each species has three traits, niche position, diet position and feeding range. Here, a new probabilistic niche model, which allows the maximum likelihood set of trait values to be estimated for each species, is applied to the food web of the Benguela fishery. We also developed the allometric niche model, in which body size is used as the niche dimension. About 80% of the links in the empirical data are predicted by the probabilistic niche model, a significant improvement over recent models. As in the niche model, species are uniformly distributed on the niche axis. Feeding ranges are exponentially distributed, but diet positions are not uniformly distributed below the predator. Species traits are strongly correlated with body size, but the allometric niche model performs significantly worse than the probabilistic niche model. The best-fit parameter set provides a significantly better model of the structure of the Benguela food web than was previously available. The methodology allows the identification of a number of taxa that stand out as outliers either in the model's poor performance at predicting their predators or prey or in their parameter values. While important, body size alone does not explain the structure of the one-dimensional niche. |
url |
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC2918514?pdf=render |
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