title: Food-web complexity, meta-community complexity and community stability.
abstract: What allows interacting, diverse species to coexist in nature has been a central question in ecology, ever since the theoretical prediction that a complex community should be inherently unstable. Although the role of spatiality in species coexistence has been recognized, its application to more complex systems has been less explored. Here, using a meta-community model of food web, we show that meta-community complexity, measured by the number of local food webs and their connectedness, elicits a self-regulating, negative-feedback mechanism and thus stabilizes food-web dynamics. Moreover, the presence of meta-community complexity can give rise to a positive food-web complexity-stability effect. Spatiality may play a more important role in stabilizing dynamics of complex, real food webs than expected from ecological theory based on the models of simpler food webs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Science, Faculty of Life and Environmental Science, Shimane University, 1060 Nishikawatsu-cho, Matsue 690-8504, Japan.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mougi
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Solution Technology, Faculty of Science and Technology, Ryukoku University, 1-5 Yokoya, Seta Oe-cho, Otsu 520-2194, Japan.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kondoh
mesh_terms: D017753:Ecosystem; D020387:Food Chain; D008962:Models, Theoretical