Eat the specialist - Robustness in ecological food webs

Food webs are large, densely-connected networks of predator-prey interactions that form the backbone of most natural ecosystems. Simple theoretical arguments suggest that large, densely-connected webs should be dynamically unstable. Yet, in particular the very large and highly complex natural food webs are characterized by a high degree of dynamical stability. By contrast simpler man-made ecosystems are prone to dynamical instabilities. Many studies have aimed to identify the topological properties that lend natural food webs their exceptional stability. However, these past efforts were hampered by the difficulties associated with analyzing nonlinear, high-dimensional systems of stiff differential equations containing many unknown parameters. In this talk I present a new approach to food web stability, based on insights from dynamical systems theory. Among other results, applying this approach reveals a topological property of natural food webs that strongly promotes dynamical stability.

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