Report

TROPHIC LEVELS AND TROPHIC TANGLES: THE PREVALENCE OF OMNIVORY IN REAL FOOD WEBS

Ross M. Thompson

School of Biological Sciences and Australian Centre for Biodiversity, Monash University, Clayton, Melbourne, Vic 3800, Australia

E‐mail: ross.thompson@sci.monash.edu.auSearch for more papers by this author
Martin Hemberg

Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ UK

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Brian M. Starzomski

Department of Zoology and Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4 Canada

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Jonathan B. Shurin

Department of Zoology and Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4 Canada

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First published: 01 March 2007
Cited by: 142

Corresponding Editor: D. A. Spiller.

Abstract

The concept of trophic levels is one of the oldest in ecology and informs our understanding of energy flow and top‐down control within food webs, but it has been criticized for ignoring omnivory. We tested whether trophic levels were apparent in 58 real food webs in four habitat types by examining patterns of trophic position. A large proportion of taxa (64.4%) occupied integer trophic positions, suggesting that discrete trophic levels do exist. Importantly however, the majority of those trophic positions were aggregated around integer values of 0 and 1, representing plants and herbivores. For the majority of the real food webs considered here, secondary consumers were no more likely to occupy an integer trophic position than in randomized food webs. This means that, above the herbivore trophic level, food webs are better characterized as a tangled web of omnivores. Omnivory was most common in marine systems, rarest in streams, and intermediate in lakes and terrestrial food webs. Trophic‐level‐based concepts such as trophic cascades may apply to systems with short food chains, but they become less valid as food chains lengthen.

Number of times cited: 142

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