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Researchers often reuse food webs, but publication origin significantly impacts their structure. This study reveals that webs from the same publication are highly similar, potentially hindering comparisons across different sources.

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Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Network Science
  • Bibliometrics

Background:

  • Freely available food webs are widely reused for ecological community analysis.
  • Reusing food webs can introduce structural biases due to differing methodologies across publications.
  • Understanding these biases is crucial for accurate ecological inference.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the influence of publication source on the structural similarity of ecological food webs.
  • To identify potential disparities in food web structure that affect inter-publication comparisons.
  • To propose methods for mitigating publication-driven structural biases.

Main Methods:

  • Quantified structural similarity across 274 food webs from 105 publications.
  • Employed a subgraph technique to compare network structures.
  • Analyzed similarity based on ecosystem, construction methodology, and publication source.

Main Results:

  • No increased structural similarity was found between webs from the same ecosystem or using similar construction methods.
  • Food webs sourced from the same publication exhibited high structural similarity.
  • This similarity within publications increased over time.

Conclusions:

  • Publication origin is a dominant factor shaping food web structure, overriding ecosystem or methodological similarities.
  • The inherent structural similarity of webs within a publication can impede comparative ecological analyses.
  • New approaches are needed to address publication-related structural biases in food web research.