Interaction between birds and macrofauna within food webs of six intertidal habitats of the Wadden Sea.

ABSTRACT: The determination of food web structures using Ecological Network Analysis (ENA) is a helpful tool to get insight into complex ecosystem processes. The intertidal area of the Wadden Sea is structured into diverse habitat types which differ in their ecological functioning. In the present study, six different intertidal habitats (i.e. cockle field, razor clam field, mud flat, mussel bank, sand flat and seagrass meadow) were analyzed using ENA to determine similarities and characteristic differences in the food web structure of the systems. All six systems were well balanced between their degree of organization and their robustness. However, they differed in their detailed features. The cockle field and the mussel bank exhibited a strong dependency on external imports. The razor clam field ap

SUBMITTER: Horn S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5425016 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature