Ecological theory suggests that complex food webs should not persist because of their inherent instability. "Real" ecosystems often support a large number of interacting species. A mathematical model shows that fluctuating short-term selection on trophic links, arising from a consumer's adaptive food choice, is a key to the long-term stability of complex communities. Without adaptive foragers, ...

.............................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................... iv CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................... 1 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .....................................

Seagrass beds provide important habitat for a wide range of marine species but are threatened by multiple human impacts in coastal waters. Although seagrass communities have been well-studied in the field, a quantification of their food-web structure and functioning, and how these change across space and human impacts has been lacking. Motivated by extensive field surveys and literature informa...

The aims were to: develop a food environment classification tool and to test the acceptability and validity of three secondary sources of food environment data within a defined urban area of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, using a field validation method. A 21 point (with 77 sub-categories) classification tool was developed. The fieldwork recorded 617 establishments selling food and/or food products. The ...

Food security has become one of the heated issues in society because of the frequent occurrence of food security incidents in recent years. So far all regulatory agencies in Hangzhou have established their food regulatory information systems. However, because of the mutual independence and heterogeneousness among these systems, it is hard to share the information and to take concerted steps amo...

Aggregates of biogenic origin >0.5 mm, known as marine snow, represent a concentrated potential source of food for zooplankton. Little is known, however, about whether aggregates are commonly grazed by zooplankton in the field. While previous laboratory studies have shown that the euphausiid Euphausia pacifica, and the copepod, Calanus pacificus, common crustacean zooplankters, consume marine s...

Despite a contemporary milieu that emphasises fluidities across gender boundaries and shifting roles, the 75 respondents in the study that informs this paper presented their food auto/biographies as a type of transformation narrative heavily influenced by the continued intersectionalities of gender and class. Respondents utilised ‘common vocabularies’ (Mills 1959) and conformed to cultural scri...

The history of food acceptance research by the US Army in Chicago and Natick is reviewed. The review covers the staff of the two research centers, the research programs, and the significant accomplishments of the Army laboratories from the 1940s to the present. Accomplishments begin with the development of the nine-point hedonic scale, and the development of the first Food Acceptance Laboratory...

This case study reviews the experience of the Somalia Food Security Assessment Unit (FSAU) of operating a food security information system in the context of a complex emergency. In particular, it explores the linkages between selected features of the protracted crisis environment in Somalia and conceptual and operational aspects of food security information work. The paper specifically examines...

Intraguild predation (IGP) is an omnivorous food web configuration in which the top predator consumes both a competitor (consumer) and a second prey that it shares with the competitor. This omnivorous configuration occurs frequently in food webs, but theory suggests that it is unstable unless stabilizing mechanisms exist that can decrease the strength of the omnivore and consumer interaction. A...