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. 2014 Mar 17;17(6):651–661. doi: 10.1111/ele.12266

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© 2014 The Authors. Ecology Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd and CNRS.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Feedbacks and stability. Empirical parameterisations of the interaction strengths of the Antarctic dry and wet tundra systems and 21 soil food webs (for legend see Fig. 3, with plus signs for the 21 soil webs) are compared with symmetric (yellow symbols) and asymmetric (green symbols) parameterisations. (a) 3-Link and 2-link predator-prey feedbacks and system vulnerability λ_d (N = 71, R² = 0.97, P < 10⁻¹⁵). λ_d is correlated with (b) complexity in the symmetric webs (N = 23, R² = 0.94, P < 10⁻¹³), (c) the level of omnivory (N = 23, R² = 0.84, P < 10⁻⁹) in the asymmetric webs, and (d) maximum ratio of 3-link and 2-link feedback in omnivorous structures (N = 25, R² = 0.79, P < 10⁻⁰⁸) in the empirical webs. (e) Weights (Neutel et al. 2002) of 2- and 3-link feedback loops in the Antarctic dry tundra for the different parameterisations. The spectra are representative of the other food webs and the symmetric and asymmetric spectra contain the 2- and 3-link feedbacks of 100 samplings of those parameterisations.

Inline graphic — Feedbacks and stability. Empirical parameterisations of the interaction strengths of the Antarctic dry and wet tundra systems and 21 soil food webs (for legend see Fig. 3, with plus signs for the 21 soil webs) are compared with symmetric (yellow symbols) and asymmetric (green symbols) parameterisations. (a) 3-Link and 2-link predator-prey feedbacks and system vulnerability λ_d (N = 71, R² = 0.97, P < 10⁻¹⁵). λ_d is correlated with (b) complexity in the symmetric webs (N = 23, R² = 0.94, P < 10⁻¹³), (c) the level of omnivory (N = 23, R² = 0.84, P < 10⁻⁹) in the asymmetric webs, and (d) maximum ratio of 3-link and 2-link feedback in omnivorous structures (N = 25, R² = 0.79, P < 10⁻⁰⁸) in the empirical webs. (e) Weights (Neutel et al. 2002) of 2- and 3-link feedback loops in the Antarctic dry tundra for the different parameterisations. The spectra are representative of the other food webs and the symmetric and asymmetric spectra contain the 2- and 3-link feedbacks of 100 samplings of those parameterisations.