Journal
ECOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 12, Issue 9, Pages 961-969Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01341.x
Keywords
Ecological network; food web; host-parasitoid; mutualism; nestedness; null model; specialization; trophic level
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Funding
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/C002105/1] Funding Source: researchfish
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Theories suggest that food webs might consist of groups of species forming 'blocks', 'compartments' or 'guilds'. We consider ecological networks - subsets of complete food webs - involving species at adjacent trophic levels. Reciprocal specializations occur when (say) a pollinator (or group of pollinators) specializes on a particular flower species (or group of such species) and vice versa. Such specializations tend to group species into guilds. We characterize the level of reciprocal specialization for both antagonistic interactions - particularly parasitoids and their hosts - and mutualistic ones - such as insects and the flowers that they pollinate. We also examine whether trophic patterns might be 'palimpsests'- that is, there might be reciprocal specialization within taxonomically related species within a network, but these might be obscured when these relationships are combined. Reciprocal specializations are rare in all these systems when tested against the most conservative null model.
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