Figure 2.

The hump-shaped structure of food webs occurs at a variety of scales from (a) within the pelagic, (b) within a lake and (c) between lakes and terrestrial ecosystems. Green and red delineate energy channels and the size range of the resident species. Note that in all cases, there appears to be consistent size differences between pathways such that one pathway is consistently smaller at all trophic levels until the top of the hump-shaped trophic structure whereby both pathways are coupled by predators. Adapted from Rooney et al. (2008). DOC, dissolved organic carbon.