IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v405y2000i6790d10.1038_35016565.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ecosystem size determines food-chain length in lakes

Author

Listed:
  • David M. Post

    (Corson Hall, Cornell University
    Institute of Ecosystem Studies)

  • Michael L. Pace

    (Institute of Ecosystem Studies)

  • Nelson G. Hairston

    (Corson Hall, Cornell University)

Abstract

Food-chain length is an important characteristic of ecological communities1: it influences community structure2, ecosystem functions1,2,3,4 and contaminant concentrations in top predators5,6. Since Elton7 first noted that food-chain length was variable among natural systems, ecologists have considered many explanatory hypotheses1,4,8,9, but few are supported by empirical evidence4,10,11. Here we test three hypotheses that predict food-chain length to be determined by productivity alone (productivity hypothesis)4,10,12,13, ecosystem size alone (ecosystem-size hypothesis)14,15 or a combination of productivity and ecosystem size (productive-space hypothesis)7,16,17,18. The productivity and productive-space hypotheses propose that food-chain length should increase with increasing resource availability; however, the productivity hypothesis does not include ecosystem size as a determinant of resource availability. The ecosystem-size hypothesis is based on the relationship between ecosystem size and species diversity, habitat availability and habitat heterogeneity14,15. We find that food-chain length increases with ecosystem size, but that the length of the food chain is not related to productivity. Our results support the hypothesis that ecosystem size, and not resource availability, determines food-chain length in these natural ecosystems.

Suggested Citation

  • David M. Post & Michael L. Pace & Nelson G. Hairston, 2000. "Ecosystem size determines food-chain length in lakes," Nature, Nature, vol. 405(6790), pages 1047-1049, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:405:y:2000:i:6790:d:10.1038_35016565
    DOI: 10.1038/35016565
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/35016565
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/35016565?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elisa Serviere-Zaragoza & Salvador E. Lluch-Cota & Alejandra Mazariegos-Villarreal & Eduardo F. Balart & Hugo Valencia-Valdez & Lia Celina Méndez-Rodríguez, 2021. "Cadmium, Lead, Copper, Zinc, and Iron Concentration Patterns in Three Marine Fish Species from Two Different Mining Sites inside the Gulf of California, Mexico," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(2), pages 1-18, January.
    2. Wang, Shuran Cindy & Liu, Xueqin & Liu, Yong & Wang, Hongzhu, 2020. "Benthic-pelagic coupling in lake energetic food webs," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 417(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:405:y:2000:i:6790:d:10.1038_35016565. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.