The interplay between predator's prey preference and environmental heterogeneity in food web long-term stability.
Prey preference of a predator is commonly used in models to analyze the timely issue of the relation among food web structure, diversity and stability. Given the variety of these terms in ecological literature, this work shows that domains of stability and species coexistence in food webs can be significantly altered by the chosen structure of predator's prey preference and environmental heterogeneity. Such results may bear upon issues in applied ecology, e.g., species conservation, biological control. More generally, they may serve as a caution with respect to the robustness of some results of food web theory.
Faria
Lucas Del Bianco
Ldel B
Laboratório Nacional de Computação Científica, Av. Getúlio Vargas, 333, Quitandinha, Petrópolis, RJ 25651-070, Brazil.
da Silveira Costa
Michel Iskin
MI
D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D017753:Ecosystem; D020387:Food Chain; D005518:Food Preferences; D008954:Models, Biological; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011235:Predatory Behavior