On an early result on stability and complexity
Published in American Naturalist, 1999
In a recent paper, Solow and Beet (1998) showed that the links in observed community food webs are not randomly distributed. Instead, these webs appear to be lumpy in the sense of being composed of relatively tightly connected compartments, with relatively loose connections between compartments. In light of this finding, the question naturally arises as to why food webs have this structure. One possibility is that lumpiness contributes to the stability of the underlying dynamic predator-prey system.
Recommended citation: Solow, A. R., Costello, C., & Beet, A. (1999). American Naturalist "154(5), 587-588.".
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