Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Optimal Foraging00:48

Optimal Foraging

14.1K
How animals obtain and eat their food is called foraging behavior. Foraging can include searching for plants and hunting for prey and depends on the species and environment.
14.1K
Trophic Levels01:35

Trophic Levels

38.1K
All organisms in an ecosystem occupy a trophic level in the food chain. The lowest level consists of primary producers, which synthesize their food from either solar or chemical energy. Each subsequent level obtains energy from the levels below. Detritivores can occupy any of the levels above primary producers.
38.1K
Predator-Prey Interactions02:39

Predator-Prey Interactions

21.8K
Predators consume prey for energy. Predators that acquire prey and prey that avoid predation both increase their chances of survival and reproduction (i.e., fitness). Routine predator-prey interactions elicit mutual adaptations that improve predator offenses, such as claws, teeth, and speed, as well as prey defenses, including crypsis, aposematism, and mimicry. Thus, predator-prey interactions resemble an evolutionary arms race.
21.8K
Ecological Niches02:02

Ecological Niches

27.0K
All organisms have a position within an ecosystem. The complete set of living and nonliving factors—including food resources, climate, and terrain—that define the position of a given organism are collectively referred to as the organism’s ecological niche.
27.0K
Symbiosis00:58

Symbiosis

37.8K
Symbiotic relationships are long-term, close interactions between individuals of different species that affect the distribution and abundance of those species. When a relationship is beneficial to both species, this is called mutualism. When the relationship is beneficial to one species but neither beneficial nor harmful to the other species, this is called commensalism. When one organism is harmed to benefit another, the relationship is known as parasitism. These types of relationships often...
37.8K
Trophic Efficiency00:46

Trophic Efficiency

25.5K
Trophic level transfer efficiency (TLTE) is a measure of the total energy transfer from one trophic level to the next. Due to extensive energy loss as metabolic heat, an average of only 10% of the original energy obtained is passed on to the next level. This pattern of energy loss severely limits the possible number of trophic levels in a food chain.
25.5K

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Generalized dynamics of cross-feeding bacteria.

Journal of the Royal Society, Interface·2026
Same author

Functional motifs in food webs and networks.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same author

Unsupervised pattern and outlier detection for pedestrian trajectories using diffusion maps.

Physica A·2025
Same author

Phase and gain stability for adaptive dynamical networks.

Chaos (Woodbury, N.Y.)·2025
Same author

Cross-feeding creates tipping points in microbiome diversity.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2025
Same author

Exploring glioma heterogeneity through omics networks: from gene network discovery to causal insights and patient stratification.

BioData mining·2024
Same journal

Correction: A method for supervoxel-wise association studies of age and other non-imaging variables from coronary computed tomography angiograms.

Scientific reports·2026
Same journal

Poly(bromophenol blue)/CoSn(OH)<sub>6</sub> cubic particles modified pencil graphite electrode for electrochemical determination of diphenhydramine.

Scientific reports·2026
Same journal

Dietary Chlorella, Spirulina, and acidifier modulate jejunal cytokine-related gene expression in broiler chickens.

Scientific reports·2026
Same journal

Perceived physical activity barriers in university students: associations with fatigue and eating behaviours.

Scientific reports·2026
Same journal

Refuge limitation structures habitat use in agricultural landscapes: evidence from Sunda pangolins.

Scientific reports·2026
Same journal

Lightweight stateless transaction verification with outsourced witness updates for UTXO blockchains.

Scientific reports·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 23, 2026

Linking Predation Risk, Herbivore Physiological Stress and Microbial Decomposition of Plant Litter
10:20

Linking Predation Risk, Herbivore Physiological Stress and Microbial Decomposition of Plant Litter

Published on: March 12, 2013

14.0K

Spatial effects in meta-foodwebs.

Edmund Barter1, Thilo Gross2

  • 1University of Bristol, Department of Engineering Mathematics, Bristol, UK. edmund.barter@bristol.ac.uk.

Scientific Reports
|September 1, 2017
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

This study explores meta-foodweb dispersal in ecological networks. Spatial embedding in landscapes influences species distribution and promotes the coexistence of competing species.

More Related Videos

Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy
07:00

Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy

Published on: October 4, 2024

1.2K
JenaTron - An Experimental Approach to Study the Effects of Plant History and Soil History on Grassland Ecosystem Functioning
09:23

JenaTron - An Experimental Approach to Study the Effects of Plant History and Soil History on Grassland Ecosystem Functioning

Published on: March 21, 2025

2.0K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Feb 23, 2026

Linking Predation Risk, Herbivore Physiological Stress and Microbial Decomposition of Plant Litter
10:20

Linking Predation Risk, Herbivore Physiological Stress and Microbial Decomposition of Plant Litter

Published on: March 12, 2013

14.0K
Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy
07:00

Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy

Published on: October 4, 2024

1.2K
JenaTron - An Experimental Approach to Study the Effects of Plant History and Soil History on Grassland Ecosystem Functioning
09:23

JenaTron - An Experimental Approach to Study the Effects of Plant History and Soil History on Grassland Ecosystem Functioning

Published on: March 21, 2025

2.0K

Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Network Theory
  • Spatial Ecology

Background:

  • Landscapes consist of habitat patches forming food webs.
  • Meta-foodweb models integrate feeding and dispersal across patches.
  • Previous models lacked explicit spatial embedding.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To compare meta-foodweb dispersal on spatially embedded vs. non-embedded networks.
  • To investigate the impact of spatial structure on species distribution and coexistence.

Main Methods:

  • Modeled meta-foodweb dispersal on Erdős-Rényi (non-spatial) and random geometric (spatial) networks.
  • Analyzed patch occupation patterns for specialist and omnivorous species.

Main Results:

  • Spatial embedding creates meso-scale patterns of patch occupation.
  • Local structure and network distances influence species distribution.
  • Spatial separations increase the likelihood of competing species coexistence.

Conclusions:

  • Spatial embeddings significantly affect meta-foodweb dynamics.
  • Explicit spatial considerations are crucial for ecological network models.
  • New analytical approaches are needed for spatially explicit meta-foodwebs.