Community Ecology Processes, Models, and Applications

Table 12.1

Comparison between the characteristics of empirical data sets

and those of communities emerging from the model described

in Section 12.2.1.2

that are the closest when the interference competition

rate

a^0

varies from 0 to 0.5 and the niche width

nw

varies from 0.5 to 5

Value

Error

SMI

CD

YE

CB

BBL

LRL

SP

Connectance

99

0.26 (0.12)

0.26

(0.31)

0.23 (0.061)

0.24 (0.072)

0.2 (0.17)

0.15 (0.12)

0.27 (0.32)

Chain length

26

4.15 (4.2)

6.2 (7.18)

3.79 (4.89)

4 (2.77)

4.14 (2.55)

4.6 (N.A.)

5.44 (4.81)

Omnivore

19

54 (60)

76 (79)

42 (53)

46 (38)

48 (36)

47 (N.A.)

74

(60)

Top

22

17 (17)

5 (0)

24 (38)

21 (28)

4 (0)

4 (0)

5 (4)

Intermediate

7

63 (69)

80 (90)

55 (53)

60 (62)

68 (68)

82 (87)

79 (92)

Bottom

75

20 (14)

15 (10)

21 (9)

19 (10)

28 (32)

14 (13)

16 (4)

SMI, St Martin Island; CD, Coachella Dessert; YE, Y than

Estuary; CB, Chesapeake Bay; BBL, Bridge Brook Lake; LRL,

Little Rock Lake; SP, Skipwidth Pond.In

each instance, the characteristics of the simulated community

are given, while the empirical data is given in parentheses.

Matching of the two is comparable to

the ones obtained using the Niche model. Other parameters

are fixed:

I, 10;

e, 0.1;

v, 0.5;

^0

,1;

d,2;

f, 0.3;^0

m

, 0.1; 0

b¼

0.25.