The question what determines the structure of natural food webs has been
listed among the nine most important unanswered questions in ecology. It arises
naturally from many problems related to ecosystem stability and resilience. The
traditional view is that population-dynamical stability is crucial for
understanding the observed structures. But phylogeny (evolutionary history) has
also been suggested as the dominant mechanism. Here we show that observed
topological features of predatory food webs can be reproduced to unprecedented
accuracy by a mechanism taking into account only phylogeny, size constraints,
and the heredity of the trophically relevant traits of prey and predators. The
analysis reveals a tendency to avoid resource competition rather than apparent
competition. In food webs with many parasites this pattern is reversed.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, 1 table + Appendix of 36 pages, 18 figures.
movie available from http://ag.rossberg.net/matching.mp
