Abstract
Although the effects of species diversity on food web stability have long been recognized, relatively little is known about the influence of intraspecific diversity. Empirical work has found that intraspecific diversity can increase community resilience and resistance, but few theoretical studies have attempted to use modeling approaches to determine how intraspecific diversity will affect food web stability. To begin to address this knowledge gap, we added intraspecific diversity to May’s classic random food web model. We found that, like species diversity, intraspecific diversity decreased stability. These effects on stability were not simply attributable to changes in interaction strengths, suggesting that intraspecific diversity can have its own independent effects on stability. Its effect depends on the relationship between inter- and intra-genotype interactions; when competition within genotypes was stronger than among them, food webs were generally more stable than when the converse was true. Overall, our model suggests that determining the direction and the magnitude of intraspecific diversity’s effects on stability in natural systems will require more empirical information about how its inclusion alters patterns of interaction strength and food web topology.
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We acknowledge financial support from the National Science Foundation (OCE 1458158, CCF 1442728 to TCG and BIO 1710782 to AEN).
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Noto, A.E., Gouhier, T.C. The effects of intraspecific and interspecific diversity on food web stability. Theor Ecol 13, 399–407 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12080-020-00460-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12080-020-00460-z