In this talk I discuss how food webs are structured on the landscape, and the implications of this structure for food web dynamics. To this end, I synthesize a number of recent empirical and theoretical papers to argue that food web dynamics are characterized by high amounts of spatial and temporal variability and that organisms respond predictably, via behavior, to these changing conditions.
Results/Conclusions
Behavioral responses on the landscape drives a highly adaptive food web structure in space and time. Empirical evidence suggests that underlying attributes of food webs are potentially scale-invariant such that food webs are characterized by "hump-shaped" trophic structures with fast and slow pathways that repeat at different resolutions within the food web. I then place these empirically-motivated patterns within the context of recent food web theory to show that adaptable food web structure confers stability to an assemblage of interacting organisms in a variable world. Finally, I show that recent food web analyses agree with two of the major predictions of this theory.
