Community structure and collapses in multi-channel food webs: role of
consumer body sizes and mesohabitat productivities.
Abstract
Multi-channel food webs are shaped by the ability of apex predators to
link asymmetric energy flows in mesohabitats differing in productivity
and community traits. While body size is a fundamental trait underlying
life histories and demography, its implications for structuring
multi-channel food webs are unexplored. To fill this gap, we develop a
framework that links population responses to predation and resource
availability to community-level patterns using a tri-trophic food web
model with two populations of intermediate consumers and a
size-selective top predator. We show that asymmetries in mesohabitat
productivities and consumer body sizes drive food web structure, merging
previously separate theory on apparent competition and emergent Allee
effects (i.e., abrupt collapses of top predator populations). Our
results yield theoretical support for empirically observed stability of
asymmetric multi-channel food webs and discover three novel types of
emergent Allee effects involving intermediate consumers, multiple
populations or multiple alternative stable states.