Upcoming working group on terrestrial food webs
From April 11 to 13 2022 Valdovinos' lab at UC Davis will be hosting a working group to develop theory on the Allometric Trophic Network...
By nature, ecosystems are composed of many species interacting in different and complex ways. Historically research has been focused on feeding interactions. We contribute to the field by integrating mutualistic interactions in these food webs which have been shown to increase the persistence, productivity, abundance, and temporal stability of mutualist and non-mutualist species in the community. Synthesizing antagonistic and mutualistic interactions is an important step in building the predictive ability of dynamic ecosystem models.
Hale, K.R.S., Valdovinos, F.S., Martinez, N.D. (2020) Mutualism increases diversity, stability, and function of multiplex networks that integrate pollinators into food webs. Nature Communications, 11, 1-14, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15688-w
Valdovinos, F.S. (2019) Mutualistic Networks: Moving closer to a predictive theory. Ecology Letters, 22, 1517-1534, DOI: 10.1111/ele.13279