We analyze the local structure of model and empirical food webs through the statistics of three-node subgraphs. We study analytically and numerically the number of appearances of each subgraph for a simple model of food web topology, the so-called generalized cascade model, and compare them with 17 empirical community food webs from a variety of environments, including aquatic, estuarine, and t...

Food webs, networks of feeding relationships in an ecosystem, provide fundamental insights into mechanisms that determine ecosystem stability and persistence. A standard approach in food-web analysis, and network analysis in general, has been to identify compartments, or modules, defined by many links within compartments and few links between them. This approach can identify large habitat bound...

Understanding spatial dynamics and creating spatial boundaries of marine food webs is an important topic that resource managers are beginning to understand. Food web structure, mediated by spatial and habitat differences, was examined in a subtropical estuary using stomach content and stable isotope analyses. The goal of this studywas to characterize the trophic structure in subtidal oyster ree...

The health, social and planning policy agendas which have focused on the issue of food deserts, food access and food choice provide the context for this study of the outcomes of a large scale food retail intervention in Springburn, Glasgow. Through an analysis of changing retail structure and foodscape health impacts on food provision, food choice and physical and economic accessibility. This i...

There is concern that genetically modified (GM) plants may have adverse affects on the arthropod biodiversity comprising agricultural landscapes. The present study report on a two year field experimental test of whether four different genotypic lines, some are novel with no previous field tests, of GM maize hybrids alter the structure of arthropod food webs that they harbour, relative to non-GM...

This review is a survey on the latest and more recent applications of microscopy to study the morphological changes that food components or microorganisms undergo during processing. Apart from a brief discussion on the fundamentals of microscopic techniques, examples have been set out on the physical effects of different processes such as drying (hot air drying, spray drying, microwave, osmotic...

A Food Systems and Public Health conference was convened in April 2009 to consider research supporting food systems that are healthy, green, fair, and affordable. We used a complex systems framework to examine the contents of background material provided to conference participants. Application of our intervention-level framework (paradigm, goals, system structure, feedback and delays, structura...

The determinants of the structure, functioning and resilience of pelagic ecosystems across most of the polar regions are not well known. Improved understanding is essential for assessing the value of biodiversity and predicting the effects of change (including in biodiversity) on these ecosystems and the services they maintain. Here we focus on the trophic interactions that underpin ecosystem s...

irrigated agriculture is an important contributor to the expansion of national food supplies and is expected to play a major role in food security of developing countries. such countries face water crisis for securing the food staples. well designed water resource policies potentially can improve the water allocation and use efficiency as well as the food security objectives. this paper present...