 Modeling inverted biomass pyramids and refuges in ecosystemsHao Wang, Wendy Morrison, Abhinav Singh and Weiss, Howard (Howie) Ecological Modelling, 2009, vol. 220, issue 11, 1376-1382 Abstract: Although the existence of robust inverted biomass pyramids (IBPs) seems paradoxical, they are well known to exist in planktonic communities, and have recently been discovered in pristine coral reefs and in a reef off the North Carolina coast. Understanding the underlying mechanisms which produce inverted biomass pyramids provides new ecological insights. Some ecologists hypothesize that “the high growth rate of prey and low death rate of predators” causes IBPs. However, we show this is not always the case (see Sections 3.1 and 4). We devise predator–prey models to describe three mechanisms that can lead to IBPs: (1) well-mixed populations with large prey turn-over rate, (2) well-mixed populations with prey immigration, and (3) non-mixed populations where the prey can hide in refuges. The three models are motivated by the three ecosystems where IBPs have been observed. We also devise three refuge mediated models, with explicit refuge size, which incorporate different prey responses in the refuge, and we discuss how these lead to IBPs. Keywords: Inverted biomass pyramids; Predator–prey model; Refuge; Immigration (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:220:y:2009:i:11:p:1376-1382 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2009.03.005 Access Statistics for this article Ecological Modelling is currently edited by Brian D. Fath More articles in Ecological Modelling from Elsevier |
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