Far-ranging generalist top predators enhance the stability of meta-foodwebs
Abstract
Identifying stabilizing factors in foodwebs is a long standing challenge with wide implications for community ecology and conservation. Here, we investigate the stability of spatially resolved meta-foodwebs with far-ranging super-predators for whom the whole meta-foodwebs appears to be a single habitat. By using a combination of generalized modeling with a master stability function approach, we are able to efficiently explore the asymptotic stability of large classes of realistic many-patch meta-foodwebs. We show that meta-foodwebs with far-ranging top predators are more stable than those with localized top predators. Moreover, adding far-ranging generalist top predators to a system can have a net stabilizing effect. These results highlight the importance of top predator conservation.
- Publication:
-
Scientific Reports
- Pub Date:
- August 2019
- DOI:
- 10.1038/s41598-019-48731-y
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1904.00874
- Bibcode:
- 2019NatSR...912268B
- Keywords:
-
- Quantitative Biology - Populations and Evolution
- E-Print:
- Scientific Reportsvolume 9, Article number: 12268 (2019)