<preprint> Part-whole relations between food webs

Dear Colleagues,

this message is really about food webs.

Please have a look at my manuscript

       Part-Whole Relations Between Food Webs and the Validity of
       Local Food-Web Descriptions

recently accepted for Ecological Complexity.  It gives formulae
relating the topology of large food webs to the topology of random
sub-samples thereof of arbitrary size, and argues that, since such
relations exist, food webs sampled at different scales contain, as far
as topology is concerned, similar information.  And no, the question
how L scales with S is explicitly excluded :) .

Your comments are welcome!

Axel Rossberg

URL: http://axel.rossberg.net/paper/Rossberg2007a.pdf

Abstract:

This work analyzes the relationship between large food webs describing
potential feeding relations between species and smaller sub-webs
thereof describing relations actually realized in local communities of
various sizes. Special attention is given to the relationships between
patterns of phylogenetic correlations encountered in large webs and
sub-webs. Based on the current theory of food-web topology as