Table 2.

Details of the parameters used in the model

Symbol	Meaning	Value	Unit
r i	Maximum specific or intrinsic growth rate	$(GP{P}_i-R_i)/\left[B_i(1-1/{10}^{k_0})\right]$	day−1
K	Carrying capacity	${10}^{k_0}\sum _{j=pro}{B}_i$	g C m−2
d i	Natural specific death rate	$\sum _{j=det}{F}_{ij}/B_i$	day−1
a i	Assimilation efficiency	$1-\sum _{j=det}{F}_{ij}/\sum _{j=res}{F}_{ji}$	Proportion (unitless)
x i	Respiration rate	R i/B i	day−1
p ji	Proportion of converted detritus i in all the converted detritus from producer or consumer taxon j	$F_{ji}/\sum _{k=det}{F}_{jk}$	Proportion (unitless)
e i	Egestion rate	$1-a_i$	Proportion (unitless)
c ji	Conversion coefficient from detritus j to detritus i	F ji/B j	day−1

Our data (see Table 1) contain the values of GPP _i (gross primary production), R _i (respiration), B _i (biomass) and F _ij (carbon flux when taxon j consumes taxon i). k ₀ is an undetermined parameter. Considering that carrying capacity K was within three orders of magnitude of total primary producer biomass in the community being simulated (Hudson & Reuman 2013), we assumed k ₀ follows the distribution U[0, 3]. We ran 1000 separate simulations for each food web, using different values of k ₀, chosen randomly from this distribution.