Theory and Preliminary Effects From Examining Food Webs
One major problem with both the diversity-productivity and diversity-stability debates discussed up to this point is that both focus on interactions at just a single trophic level. That is, they are concerned with only one level of the food web, namely plants. Other research, unconcerned with the effects of diversity, has demonstrated strong top-down forcing of ecosystems (see keystone species). There is very little actual data available regarding the effects of different food webs, but theory helps us in this area. First, if a food web in an ecosystem has a lot of weak interactions between different species, then it should have more stable populations and the community as a whole should be more stable. If upper levels of the web are more diverse, then there will be less biomass in the lower levels and if lower levels are more diverse they will better be able to resist consumption and be more stable in the face of consumption. Also, top-down forcing should be reduced in less diverse ecosystems because of the bias for species in higher trophic levels to go extinct first. Lastly, it has recently been shown that consumers can dramatically change the biodiversity-productivity-stability relationships that are implied by plants alone. Thus, it will be important in the future to incorporate food web theory into the future study of the effects of biodiversity. In addition this complexity will need to be addressed when designing biodiversity management plans.
Read more about this topic: Ecological Effects Of Biodiversity
Famous quotes containing the words theory, preliminary, effects, examining, food and/or webs:
“The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any- price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)
“Oh that my Pow’r to Saving were confin’d:
Why am I forc’d, like Heav’n, against my mind,
To make Examples of another Kind?
Must I at length the Sword of Justice draw?
Oh curst Effects of necessary Law!
How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan,
Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“And if anyone should think I am tracing this matter too curiously, I, who have considered it in various shapes, can only answer with Hamlet ... “Not a jot”; it being no more than the natural result of examining and considering the subject.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“Would mankind be but contented without the continual use of that little but significant pronoun “mine” or “my own,” with what luxurious delight might they revel in the property of others!... But if envy makes me sicken at the sight of everything that is excellent out of my own possession, then will the sweetest food be sharp as vinegar, and every beauty will in my depraved eyes appear as deformity.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well it doesn’t, Mr. Potter. In the whole vast configuration of things I’d say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider.”
—Frances Goodrich (1891–1984)