More than a meal… integrating non‐feeding interactions into food webs

TLDR

Ecological network research has traditionally focused on food webs, overlooking the diverse non‑trophic interactions such as habitat modification, predator interference, and facilitation that are well documented among species. The authors propose a conceptual framework that organizes this diversity into three functional classes defined by how they modify specific parameters in a dynamic food web model. The framework defines three functional classes that alter specific parameters within a dynamic food web model. The framework enables integration of non‑trophic interactions into food web models, offering a new perspective on ecological complexity that should stimulate theoretical and empirical studies of species interactions.

Abstract

Organisms eating each other are only one of many types of well documented and important interactions among species. Other such types include habitat modification, predator interference and facilitation. However, ecological network research has been typically limited to either pure food webs or to networks of only a few (<3) interaction types. The great diversity of non-trophic interactions observed in nature has been poorly addressed by ecologists and largely excluded from network theory. Herein, we propose a conceptual framework that organises this diversity into three main functional classes defined by how they modify specific parameters in a dynamic food web model. This approach provides a path forward for incorporating non-trophic interactions in traditional food web models and offers a new perspective on tackling ecological complexity that should stimulate both theoretical and empirical approaches to understanding the patterns and dynamics of diverse species interactions in nature.