An examination of the trophic status of a cryptobenthic reef fish community from the central Great Barrier Reef was carried out to evaluate the potential role of cryptobenthic fishes in coral reef ecosystems. Using frequency of occurrence data, dietary analyses revealed a diverse range of trophic groups, although detritivory (in 10 out of 16 species and 39.3% of individuals) and carnivory (5 of...

The worldwide depletion of major fish stocks through intensive industrial fishing is thought to have profoundly altered the trophic structure of marine ecosystems. Here we assess changes in the trophic structure of the English Channel marine ecosystem using a 90-year time-series (1920-2010) of commercial fishery landings. Our analysis was based on estimates of the mean trophic level (mTL) of an...

Motor neuron physiology and development depend on a continuous and tightly regulated trophic support from a variety of cellular sources. Trophic factors guide the generation and positioning of motor neurons during every stage of the developmental process. As well, they are involved in axon guidance and synapse formation. Even in the adult spinal cord an uninterrupted trophic input is required t...

Body size exerts multiple effects on plankton food-web interactions. However, the influence of size structure on trophic transfer remains poorly quantified in the field. Here, we examine how the size diversity of prey (nano-microplankton) and predators (mesozooplankton) influence trophic transfer efficiency (using biomass ratio as a proxy) in natural marine ecosystems. Our results support previ...

Competition between marine mammals and fisheries for marine resources-whether real or perceived-has become a major issue for several countries and in international fora. We examined trophic interactions between marine mammals and fisheries based on a resource overlap index, using seven Ecopath models including marine mammal groups. On a global scale, most food consumed by marine mammals consist...

It is widely recognized that trophic interactions structure ecological communities, but their effects are usually only demonstrated on a small scale. As a result, landscape-level documentations of trophic cascades that alter entire communities are scarce. Islands invaded by animals provide natural experiment opportunities both to measure general trophic effects across large spatial scales and t...

Results Across all species, trophic position was positively related to maximum length (r = 0.194, b = 0.065, P < 0.0001), meaning that a one-level increase in trophic level was associated with an increase in maximum length by a factor of 183. On average, fishes in orders that showed significantly positive trophic level–body size relations [mean = 51.6 cm 11.8 (95% confidence interval, CI)] were...

If the trophic niche of a kind of organism is a connected region in niche space, then it is possible for trophic niche overlaps to be described in a one-dimensional niche space if and only if the trophic niche overlap graph is an interval graph. An analysis of 30 food webs, using the combinatorial theory of interval graphs, suggests that a niche space of dimension 1 suffices, with unexpectedly ...