Scientists find universal rules for food-web...(human metabolism or gene regulation. ....)

Applying this innovative modeling approach together with colleagues at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, and Princeton University, USA, the scientists have succeeded in discovering not just one, but several universal rules in the dynamics of ecosystems.

"Food-web stability is enhanced when species at high trophic levels feed on multiple prey species and species at intermediate trophic levels are fed upon by multiple predator species," says Ulf Dieckmann of IIASA.

The scientists have also identified additional stabilizing and destabilizing factors within ecosystems. Ecosystems with high densities of predator-prey links are less likely to be stable, while a strong dependence of predation on predator density destabilizes the system. On the other hand, a strong dependence of predation on prey density has a stabilizing impact on food webs.

A further important finding is that food webs consisting of only a few species behave qualitatively different from webs consisting of many species.

"Small ecosystems apparently follow different rules than large ecosystems," says Ulf Dieckmann. "Systems with fewer species are more stable if there are strong interactions between some species, but only weak interactions between others. For food webs with many species, exactly the opposite is true. Extremely strong or weak predator-prey links in nature should therefore be the rarer the more species a food web contains," he concludes.

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