Exposing the Structure of an Arctic Food Web Helena K
Exposing the structure of an Arctic food web Helena K. Wirta1,†, Eero J. Vesterinen2,†, Peter A. Hamback€ 3, Elisabeth Weingartner3, Claus Rasmussen4, Jeroen Reneerkens5,6, Niels M. Schmidt6, Olivier Gilg7,8 & Tomas Roslin1 1Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Latokartanonkaari 5, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland 2Department of Biology, University of Turku, Vesilinnantie 5, FI-20014 Turku, Finland 3Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden 4Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 114, DK–8000 Aarhus, Denmark 5Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, P.O. Box 11103, 9700 CC Groningen, The Netherlands 6Arctic Research Centre, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark 7Laboratoire Biogeosciences, UMR CNRS 6282, Universite de Bourgogne, 6 Boulevard Gabriel, 21000 Dijon, France 8Groupe de Recherche en Ecologie Arctique, 16 rue de Vernot, 21440 Francheville, France Keywords Abstract Calidris, DNA barcoding, generalism, Greenland, Hymenoptera, molecular diet How food webs are structured has major implications for their stability and analysis, Pardosa, Plectrophenax, specialism, dynamics. While poorly studied to date, arctic food webs are commonly Xysticus. assumed to be simple in structure, with few links per species. If this is the case, then different parts of the web may be weakly connected to each other, with Correspondence populations and species united by only a low number of links. We provide the Helena K. Wirta, Department of Agricultural first highly resolved description of trophic link structure for a large part of a Sciences, University of Helsinki, Latokartanonkaari 5, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland. high-arctic food web.
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