Food webs, ecological competition, and species niche analysis

Theoretical Application of Food Webs

A food webs is a type of graphical illustration that depicts a relationship between prey and predator in an ecological community. The relation is also called a food chain or food web. A food chain can also be explained as a connection or relationships within a community. In other word, the food chain is the relationships among species within a community. The graph illustrates the relationships among species, their mode of interactions and their method of interaction. The graph model reveals the relationship between the predators and prey within an ecological community. The graph also represents the ecological competition and status of the food webs.

Objective of this paper is to explore the case study of the food webs, its competition, bioxicity and trophic status. The paper also provides the application all the stipulated concepts of food webs.

Food Webs

This section discusses the factors that determine the ecological niche starting from the concept of competition to the notion of food web within an ecological community. The food webs is defined as the ecological community represented by graph with a vertex where a vertex is at each species within the community. For example, the edge starts from vertex of species A to the vertex of species if A species preys on B. species.

Fig 1: Graphical Illustration of Food Web

The fig 1 reveals the graphical illustration of the food web revealing 7 species that include fox, robin, raccoon, grasshopper, salamander, toad, and milksnake. The competition is defined using the concept of food web and two species competing with each other if they eat a common prey. In the fig 1, fox ad raccoon compete with one another because the rabbit is their common prey. While raccoon and milksnake compete, however, the robin and salamander do not compete because they do not compete for a common prey.

Fig 2: Ecological Niche

Factors that determine the health environment for a species are:

Moisture

Temperature, and pH

As being revealed in Fig 2, the acceptable values of each dimension is referred as an interval. Based on the illustration in the Fig 2, each species are represented as a box within the Euclidean space where the box represents each of its ecological niche based on the ecological principles.

The application of the food webs illustrates the energy flow from the primary producer to the primary consumers. In other words, the food webs reveal the productivity as well as the population abundance. The food webs also reveals how the man-made and natural environmental pressures has affected the ecosystems. (Hui, 2012).

Competition

HilleRisLambers, & Dieckmann, (2003) describe competition as a fundamental interaction of food webs within the ecological environment. For example, both omnivorous and predators predate and compete on their prey, and in an ecological environment, two species compete if they possess intersecting ecological niches. In a specific ecological system, various species of animals and plants occupies a niche of resources, and the resources are categorized as moisture, temperature, amounts of nutrients, and degree of acidity. All these factors are referred as ecological niche.

Fig 3: Competition Graph

The fig 3 reveals a competition graph having a vertex in each species where an undirected edge join the two vertices together if having a common prey. Based on the features of biodiversity from the ecosystems, the healthy, and normal competitions. Using the competition and food webs graphs, the problem of ecology arise when two species compete for a common prey. However, two species will compete if their ecological niches are able to overlap one another. The application of the competition is revealed in the competitive business environment where businesses compete for consumers within a market environment.

Trophic Status

The concept the trophic status is useful for the organization that introduces the status of food web. In the ecology environment, the trophic status is useful in assessing the diversity and complexity of the food webs. In the food webs, the trophic status refers to growth or nutrition for the plant growth. Three factors regulate the trophic status that include:

Climate

Nutrient supply, and Morphometry

The trophic status is useful in classifying and describing lake process with reference to productivity. The trophic status is also used for the application of classification of water quality measurement.

Conclusion

The paper discusses the food webs and its applications within the contemporary environment. The food webs consists of the relationships between the prey and the predators where there are balance between the prey and predators in an ecological environment. In essence, the food web theory can be applied in the business and technological environment.

Reference

HilleRisLambers, R. & Dieckmann, U. (2003). Competition and Predation in Simple Food Webs: Intermediately Strong Trade-offs Maximize Coexistence. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. 270: 2591 -- 2598

Hui, D. (2012). Food Web: Concept and Applications. Nature Education Knowledge. 3(12):6

Michaels, J.G. & Rosen, K.H. (2007). Applications of Discrete Mathematics (Updated Edition). New York. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.