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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 36: Statistical Physics in Biological Systems IV (organised by BP)

DY 36.5: Talk

Thursday, March 17, 2011, 15:00–15:15, ZEU 260

Predators, parasites and food web stability — •Lars Rudolf¹, Neo Martinez², and Thilo Gross¹ — ¹Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Dresden — ²Pacific Ecoinformatics and Computational Ecology Lab, Berkley, USA

Predator-prey interactions and their influence on food web stability are a major topic of ecological research. The investigation of parasitic interactions, which are another fundamental part of the most ecological communities, has been less intensive. To close that gap, we used generalized modeling and studied several million replicates of food webs with different proportions of parasitic species. In this way we determine the impact of parasitism on different food web properties and how these properties affect food web stability. Specifically, we show that a moderate proportion of parasitic species enhances food web stability.