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Science 1 September 1995:
Vol. 269. no. 5228, pp. 1257 - 1260
DOI: 10.1126/science.269.5228.1257
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Articles

Energetics, Patterns of Interaction Strengths, and Stability in Real Ecosystems

Peter C. de Ruiter 1, Anje-Margriet Neutel 1, and John C. Moore 2

1 Research Institute for Agrobiology and Soil Fertility (AB-DLO), P.O. Box 129, 9750 AC Haren, Netherlands
2 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO 80639, USA.

Ecologists have long been studying stability in ecosystems by looking at the structuring and the strengths of trophic interactions in community food webs. In a series of real food webs from native and agricultural soils, the strengths of the interactions were found to be patterned in a way that is important to ecosystem stability. The patterning consisted of the simultaneous occurrence of strong "top down" effects at lower trophic levels and strong "bottom up" effects at higher trophic levels. As the patterning resulted directly from the energetic organization of the food webs, the results show that energetics and community structure govern ecosystem stability by imposing stabilizing patterns of interaction strengths.

Submitted on March 28, 1995
Accepted on July 7, 1995


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