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Updated: Dec 16, 2025

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Does evolution design robust food webs?

B Girardot1, M Gauduchon1, F Ménard1

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Evolutionary history shapes ecological food web robustness. Past environmental conditions, not just complexity, critically influence how ecosystems resist perturbations, with highly connected webs being surprisingly fragile.

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Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Theoretical Ecology

Background:

  • Ecological robustness studies often use random food web models.
  • The role of evolutionary history in food web stability is under-explored.

Purpose of the Study:

  • Investigate if the evolutionary history of food webs impacts their robustness to perturbations.
  • Examine how environmental conditions during evolution shape food web structure and stability.

Main Methods:

  • Developed a community evolution model to generate trophic networks.
  • Varied environmental energy supply (richness) during species adaptation and diversification.
  • Assessed food web robustness by simulating responses to environmental changes and compared with empirical data.

Main Results:

  • Environmental richness significantly structured food web evolution.
  • Past environmental conditions critically influenced current food web robustness.
  • Highly connected food webs were less robust to sharp decreases in environmental energy.

Conclusions:

  • Evolutionary history and environmental context are crucial for food web robustness.
  • Food web 'adaptation' is generally limited, except for diverse flux properties.