title: A robust measure of food web intervality.
abstract: Intervality of a food web is related to the number of trophic dimensions characterizing the niches in a community. We introduce here a mathematically robust measure for food web intervality. It has previously been noted that empirical food webs are not strictly interval; however, upon comparison to suitable null hypotheses, we conclude that empirical food webs actually do exhibit a strong bias toward contiguity of prey, that is, toward intervality. Further, our results strongly suggest that empirically observed species and their diets can be mapped onto a single dimension. This finding validates a critical assumption in the recently proposed static niche model and provides guidance for ongoing efforts to develop dynamic models of ecosystems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Stouffer
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Camacho
authors.forename: Luís A Nunes
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Amaral
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D036262:Empirical Research; D020387:Food Chain; D008954:Models, Biological