Study
Complex trophic interactions in deserts: an empirical critique of food-web theory
Polis, Gary A.
The American Naturalist, 1991
Documents the feeding relationships of a desert community in far greater taxonomic and dietary detail than published food webs of the time, including invertebrates, life-stage differences and dietary breadth, and compares the resulting structure against the properties food-web theory had derived from coarser webs.
- Studied in
- Animalia, Plantae
- Sample size
- a desert community documented in unusual taxonomic detail
The real web was vastly more species-rich and more connected than published webs suggested, with widespread omnivory, cannibalism, feeding relationships that change with life stage, and species occupying several trophic levels at once. Several regularities food-web theory had derived from published webs were artefacts of how coarsely those webs were resolved.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Food-web theory of the period rested on webs too poorly resolved to support the generalisations drawn from them.
How NatureHQ reads it
The paper that should be read beside every tidy food-web diagram, including the ones on this site. Real webs contain animals that eat their own kind, that occupy different levels as juveniles and adults, and that eat across several levels at once — none of which a box-and-arrow figure shows. The diagrams remain useful; they are simplifications, and this record is why the site says so on the page rather than in a footnote.
- One desert system, described in exceptional detail because that detail was the point.
- A critique of how webs were then constructed; resolution has improved since, though rarely to this level.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: University press journalsPublished in a university press journal.
Checked against Crossref on 2026-09-28, and they agree on the title, the authors and the year.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-09-04.