Effects of heterogeneous interaction strengths on food web complexity

Abstract

Using a bioenergetic model we show that the pattern of foraging preferences greatly determines the complexity of the resulting food webs. By complexity we refer to the degree of richness of food‐web architecture, measured in terms of some topological indicators (number of persistent species and links, connectance, link density, number of trophic levels, and frequency of weak links). The poorest food‐web architecture is found for a mean‐field scenario where all foraging preferences are assumed to be the same. Richer food webs appear when foraging preferences depend on the trophic position of species. Food‐web complexity increases with the number of basal species. We also find a strong correlation between the complexity of a trophic module and the complexity of entire food webs with the same pattern of foraging preferences.