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Coupling strength between omnivory loops and their one-species-delete subloops drives food web stability
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  • Shengpeng Li,
  • Xiaoxiao Li,
  • Yueming Jiang,
  • Ruyue Wang,
  • Xianhao Meng,
  • Wei Yang,
  • Tao Sun,
  • Peter de Ruiter,
  • Yongtang Shi,
  • Jianfeng Feng
Shengpeng Li
Tianjin Foreign Studies University
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Xiaoxiao Li
Beijing Normal University
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Yueming Jiang
Nankai University
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Ruyue Wang
Nankai University
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Xianhao Meng
Nankai University
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Wei Yang
Beijing Normal University
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Tao Sun
Beijing Normal University
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Peter de Ruiter
University of Amsterdam
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Yongtang Shi
Nankai University
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Jianfeng Feng
Nankai University

Corresponding Author:fengjf@nankai.edu.cn

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Abstract

A central and fundamental issue in ecology is to understand the relationship between complexity and stability. Increased empirical evidences demonstrated no clear relationships between complexity metrics and stability, and recent food web loop analyses suggested that maximum loop weight as well as the summation ratio between 3 and 2-link feedback loop weights could be better estimators of system stability. However, the importance of longer loops than 3-link on the stability remains unclear. Here we use 127 marine food webs and the matrix product and trace method to investigate the relationship between loops with maximum of 7 links and food web stability. We found that feedback metrics |a2n+1/a2n|α, i.e., the ratio of the sums of (2n + 1)-link and 2n-link loop weights, are strongly related with stability. These sum weight ratios can be regarded as the coupling strength between omnivory loops and their one-species-delete subloops, including the smallest three species and high-level omnivory ones. Further theoretical simulations of bioenergetic consumer-resource models with allometric constraints strengthen this finding. These results suggest that both longer loops and omnivory are important drivers of the food web stability.