The effects of two lubricating oils on the trophic diversity of a nematode community of a Tunisian lagoon were investigated in a microcosm experiment. Sediment from a pristine site in Ghar El Melh lagoon (Western Mediterranean) was treated with mineral oil (Mobil 20 W-50), a synthetic lubricant (Mobil 0 W-40), the same two lubricants after use in a vehicle. Univariate analysis showed significan...

Soil nematode feeding groups are a long-established trophic categorisation largely based on morphology and are used in ecological indices to monitor and analyse the biological state of soils. Stable isotope ratio analysis ((13)C/(12)C and (15)N/(14)N, expressed as δ (13)C and δ (15)N) has provided verification of, and novel insights into, the feeding ecology of soil animals such as earthworms a...

Food webs are schematic representations of who eats whom in ecosystems. They are widely used in linking process to pattern (e.g., degree distribution and vulnerability) and investigating the roles played by particular species within the interaction web (e.g., centrality indices and trophic position). First, I present the dominator tree, a topological structure reducing food web complexity into ...

The worldwide crisis of fisheries, which are usually managed on a single species basis, has led to calls for ‘ecosystem management’, along with he development of various ecosystem indicators. The Marine Trophic Index (MTI) and the related Fishing-in-Balance (FiB) index are two such ndicators, which can be used to draw inferences on the sustainability of fisheries, notably those targeting high-t...

The presence of food within the small intestinal lumen promotes mucosal cell proliferation. To define the trophic role of triglycerides, three groups of eight female Wistar rats were isocalorically fed for four weeks with either Vivonex, or Vivonex with 50% calorie substitution with an essential fatty acid mixture, or Vivonex with 50% calorie substitution with a saturated fatty acid mixture. Al...

Multitrophic interactions play key roles in the origin and maintenance of species diversity, and the study of these interactions has contributed to important theoretical advances in ecology and evolutionary biology. Nevertheless, most biodiversity inventories focus on static species lists, and prominent theories of diversity still ignore trophic interactions. The lack of a simple interaction me...

In experimental systems, it has been shown that biodiversity indices based on traits or phylogeny can outperform species richness as predictors of plant ecosystem function. However, it is unclear whether this pattern extends to the function of food webs in natural ecosystems. Here we tested whether zooplankton functional and phylogenetic diversity explains the functioning of 23 natural pond com...