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They provide a natural laboratory where abiotic stress, biotic interactions and biological patterns can be easily examined. Intertidal rocky shores are among the most intensely studied ecosystems in the world. The niche model incorporates scale-dependence, hence allowing the comparison of food webs with different diversity and complexity. In fact, demonstrated that marine food webs are not different from non-marine food webs, by comparing their fit to the theoretical niche food web model. Food web network properties are scale-dependent, changing as diversity and complexity change and thus direct comparisons can be misleading. Yet, showed that those differences were due to different scales used in the analyses. Initially, food web networks from marine ecosystems were thought to be different from those of other ecosystems, in that they presented higher average links per species, chain lengths and connectivity than non-marine ecosystems.
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Estuarine, marine, stream, lake, and terrestrial ecosystems all seem to share similar general properties of complex food web network structure.
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This study shows, for the first time that they can be useful models for the understanding of universal processes that regulate the complex network organization of food webs, which are harder or impossible to investigate in larger, open ecosystems, due to high costs and logistical difficulties.Ĭomparative analysis of food webs from different habitats has revealed generalities in the subjacent network structure of trophic interactions. As small, self-contained habitats, intertidal rock pools are particularly tractable systems and therefore a large number of food webs can be examined with relatively low sampling effort. By using a large-scale sampling effort covering 116 intertidal rock pools in several biogeographic regions, this study showed, for the first time, that intertidal rock pools encompass food webs that share fundamental organizational characteristics with food webs from markedly different, larger, open and abiotically stable ecosystems. The niche model predictive success was remarkably high (73–88%) and similar to that previously found for much larger marine and terrestrial food webs. The intertidal rock pool food webs analysed presented properties that were in the same range as the previously published food webs. The network properties of these food webs were compared to that of estuaries, lakes and rivers, as well as marine and terrestrial ecosystems (46 previously published complex food webs). Highly resolved food webs were compiled for 116 intertidal rock pools from cold, temperate, subtropical and tropical regions, to ensure a wide representation of environmental variability.
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This study aimed to analyse their food web networks to investigate their potential as proxies of larger ecosystems for food web networks research. Intertidal rock pool environments harbour particularly high biodiversity over small areas. This way, it is crucial to find smaller systems that can be used as proxy food webs. Understanding the fundamental laws that govern complex food web networks over large ecosystems presents high costs and oftentimes unsurmountable logistical challenges.