Size, foraging, and food web structure

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 105; no. 11; pp. 4191 - 4196
• Main Authors: Petchey, Owen L, Beckerman, Andrew P, Riede, Jens O, Warren, Philip H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States National Academy of Sciences 18.03.2008; National Acad Sciences
• Series: From the Cover
• Subjects: Animals; Biological Sciences; Body size; Community structure; Diet; Ecological function; Ecology; Ecosystem studies; Ecosystems; Environmental changes; Food Chain; Food chains; Food webs; Foraging; herbivores; Modeling; Models, Biological; natural selection; parasitoids; Predators; prediction; quantitative analysis; Size; Time functions; Trophic relationships

Understanding what structures ecological communities is vital to answering questions about extinctions, environmental change, trophic cascades, and ecosystem functioning. Optimal foraging theory was conceived to increase such understanding by providing a framework with which to predict species inter...