dc.contributor.advisor	Emmerson, Mark C.
dc.contributor.author	O'Gorman, Eoin J.
dc.contributor.funder	Irish Research Council for Science Engineering and Technology	en
dc.date.accessioned	2010-04-27T15:06:59Z
dc.date.available	2010-04-27T15:06:59Z
dc.date.copyright	2009
dc.date.issued	2009-09
dc.date.submitted	2010-02-01
dc.description.abstract	Global biodiversity is eroding at an alarming rate, through a combination of anthropogenic disturbance and environmental change. Ecological communities are bewildering in their complexity. Experimental ecologists strive to understand the mechanisms that drive the stability and structure of these complex communities in a bid to inform nature conservation and management. Two fields of research have had high profile success at developing theories related to these stabilising structures and testing them through controlled experimentation. Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) research has explored the likely consequences of biodiversity loss on the functioning of natural systems and the provision of important ecosystem services. Empirical tests of BEF theory often consist of simplified laboratory and field experiments, carried out on subsets of ecological communities. Such experiments often overlook key information relating to patterns of interactions, important relationships, and fundamental ecosystem properties. The study of multi-species predator-prey interactions has also contributed much to our understanding of how complex systems are structured, particularly through the importance of indirect effects and predator suppression of prey populations. A growing number of studies describe these complex interactions in detailed food webs, which encompass all the interactions in a community. This has led to recent calls for an integration of BEF research with the comprehensive study of food web properties and patterns, to help elucidate the mechanisms that allow complex communities to persist in nature. This thesis adopts such an approach, through experimentation at Lough Hyne marine reserve, in southwest Ireland. Complex communities were allowed to develop naturally in exclusion cages, with only the diversity of top trophic levels controlled. Species removals were carried out and the resulting changes to predator-prey interactions, ecosystem functioning, food web properties, and stability were studied in detail. The findings of these experiments contribute greatly to our understanding of the stability and structure of complex natural communities.	en
dc.description.status	Not peer reviewed	en
dc.description.version	Accepted Version	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.citation	O'Gorman, E.J. 2009. The importance of interaction strength for food web dynamics and ecosystem functioning. PhD Thesis, University College Cork.	en
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10468/164
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.publisher	University College Cork	en
dc.relation.isbasedon	Griffin, J.N., O'Gorman, E.J., Emmerson, M.C., Jenkins, S.R., Klein, A.M., Loreau, M. , Symstad, A.J., 2009. Biodiversity and the stability of ecosystem functioning. In: Naeem S., Bunker D., Hector A., Loreau M., Perrings C. (eds), Biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and human wellbeing: an ecological and economic perspective. Oxford, Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199547951.001.0001
dc.relation.isbasedon	Petchey, O.L., O'Gorman. E.J., Flynn, D.F.B.. 2009. A functional guide to functional diversity measures. In: Naeem S., Bunker D., Hector A., Loreau M., Perrings C. (eds), Biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and human wellbeing: an ecological and economic perspective. Oxford, Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199547951.001.0001
dc.relation.isbasedon	O'Gorman, E.J., Enright, R.A., Emmerson, M.C., 2008. Predator diversity enhances secondary production and decreases the likelihood of trophic cascades. Oecologia, 158, pp.557–567. doi: 10.1007/s00442-008-1165-0
dc.relation.isbasedon	O'Gorman, E.J., Jacob, U., Jonsson, T., Emmerson, M.C., 2010. Interaction strength, food web topology and the relative importance of species in food webs. Journal of Animal Ecology, 79, pp.682-692. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01658.x
dc.relation.isbasedon	O'Gorman, E.J., Emmerson, M.C., 2009. Perturbations to trophic interactions and the stability of complex food webs. PNAS, 106(32), pp.13393-13398. doi:10.1073/pnas.0903682106
dc.relation.uri	http://library.ucc.ie/record=b1898015~S0
dc.rights	© Eoin J. O'Gorman, 2009.	en
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/	en
dc.subject	Marine food webs	en
dc.subject	Stability	en
dc.subject	Body size	en
dc.subject	Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning	en
dc.subject	Predator-prey interactions	en
dc.subject	Ecosystem stability	en
dc.subject.lcsh	Marine ecology--Hyne, Lough (Ireland)	en
dc.subject.lcsh	Biodiversity	en
dc.subject.lcsh	Food chains (Ecology)	en
dc.subject.lcsh	Biotic communities -- Research	en
dc.title	The importance of interaction strength for food web dynamics and ecosystem functioning	en
dc.type	Doctoral thesis	en
dc.type.qualificationlevel	Doctoral	en
dc.type.qualificationname	PhD Science	en

The importance of interaction strength for food web dynamics and ecosystem functioning

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