Trophic species

Trophic species are a scientific grouping of organisms according to their shared trophic (feeding) positions in a food web or food chain. Trophic species have identical prey and a shared set of predators in the food web. This means that members of a trophic species share many of the same kinds of ecological functions.[1][2] The idea of trophic species was first devised by Joel Cohen and Frederick Briand in 1984 to redefine assessment of the ratio of predators to prey within a food web.[3] The category may include species of plant, animal, a combination of plant and animal, and biological stages of an organism. The reassessment grouped similar species according to habit rather than genetics. This resulted in a ratio of predator to prey in food webs is generally 1:1.[4] By assigning groups in a trophic manner, relationships are linear in scale. This allows for predicting the proportion of different trophic links in a community food web.[5]

Species are grouped trophically on the left, however distinctions such as herbivore and predator are merely the simplest definitions.

References
  1. Dunne, J. A.; Williams, R. J.; Martinez, N. D. (2002). "Food-web structure and network theory: The role of connectance and size". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 99 (20): 12917–12922. Bibcode:2002PNAS...9912917D. doi:10.1073/pnas.192407699. PMC 130560. PMID 12235364.
  2. Pimm, S. L.; Lawton, J. H.; Cohen, J. E. (1991). "Food web patterns and their consequences" (PDF). Nature. 350 (6320): 669–674. Bibcode:1991Natur.350..669P. doi:10.1038/350669a0.
  3. Cohen, J. E.; Briand, F. (1984-07-01). "Trophic links of community food webs". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 81 (13): 4105–4109. Bibcode:1984PNAS...81.4105C. doi:10.1073/pnas.81.13.4105. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 345377. PMID 6588381.
  4. Cohen, Joel; Briand, Frederick; Newman, Charles (1990). Community Food Webs. Springer Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg. p. 3. ISBN 3642837840. Briand and I devised and automated lumping procedure that puts together those biological species or other biological units of a web that eat the same kinds of prey and have the same kinds of predator
  5. Cohen, J. E.; Briand, F. (1984-07-01). "Trophic links of community food webs". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 81 (13): 4105–4109. Bibcode:1984PNAS...81.4105C. doi:10.1073/pnas.81.13.4105. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 345377. PMID 6588381.


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