Employing dynamic model to study food web stability and possible regime shifts in Somme Bay

Abstract

The stability of food web is a hot issue and a research frontier in ecology which has attracted widespread interests. In this research, a new investigation is conducted on the stability of food web. We take Somme Bay as a study case and employ a dynamic model to analyze food web characteristics, with the model parameters determined by energy flow balance. Based on the model, the food web of Somme Bay is studied via the changing growth rates of producers and the observation of dynamical complexity, species extinction and food web structure. Comparing with former works, a few interesting results are obtained: (1) living dependence, species extinction cascade, competition, “couple” phenomenon between taxonomic groups are clarified; (2) complex dynamics may emerge from the dynamic model and the occurrence of chaos predicts the coming of species extinction; (3) eight degraded food web structures are found, which reflects the possible regime shifts. With the analyses of the food web characteristics in response to the change of key parameters, this research may provide a new way to study the stability and regime shifts.