Ecological Archives E092-173-D1-Table3B

Kim N. Mouritsen, Robert Poulin, John P. McLaughlin and David W. Thieltges. 2011. Food web including metazoan parasites for an intertidal ecosystem in New Zealand. Ecology 92:2006.


TABLE 3B. Definitions of variables in Links data set.

Column Number Column Name Variable Variable Description
1 Consumer Node ID nomial numeric The unordered nominal node specific ID number of the consumer in the interaction.
2 Resource Node ID nomial numeric The unordered nominal node specific ID number of the resource in the interaction.
3 Consumer Sp ID nomial numeric The unordered nominal species specific ID number of the consumer in the interaction.
4 Resource Sp ID nomial numeric The unordered nominal species specific ID number of the resource in the interaction.
5 Consumer St ID nomial numeric The combined Species ID number and Stage ID number of the consumer, separated by the decimal point.
6 Resource St ID nomial numeric The combined Species ID number and Stage ID number of the resource, separated by the decimal point.
7 Link Type ID 1 Predation
7 Link Type ID 2 Social Predation
7 Link Type ID 3 Micropredation
7 Link Type ID 4 Parasitic Castration
7 Link Type ID 5 Pathogen Infection
7 Link Type ID 6 Macroparasitism
7 Link Type ID 7 Pollination
7 Link Type ID 8 Parasitoid Infection
7 Link Type ID 9 Commensalism
7 Link Type ID 10 Trophically Transmitted Parasitic Castration
7 Link Type ID 11 Trophically Transmitted Pathogen Infection
7 Link Type ID 12 Trophically Transmitted Parasitism
7 Link Type ID 13 Trophically Transmitted Commensalism
7 Link Type ID 14 Concomitant Predation on Symbionts
7 Link Type ID 15 Trophic Transmission
7 Link Type ID 16 Predation on free-living non-feeding stages
7 Link Type ID 17 Predation on commensal non-feeding stages
7 Link Type ID 18 Detritivory
7 Link Type ID 19 Parasite intraguild trophic interaction
7 Link Type ID 20 Intimate and Durable Mutualism
7 Link Type ID 21 Facultative Micropredation
8 Link Type Predation� A consumer individual that, within a single lifecycle stage, kills and consumes more than one individual of the resource (prey) species. Examples: snakes, warblers, clams.
8 Link Type Social Predation Two or more conspecific individual predators cooperate to kill and consume a single individual of the prey species. Examples: wolves, army ants.�
8 Link Type Micropredation A consumer individual that, within a single lifecycle stage, feeds on more than one resource individual but does not kill that resource individual (host). Damage to the resource individual is intensity-dependent; the more micropredators feeding on a resource individual the greater the resource's loss of fitness. Examples: mosquitoes, leafhoppers, most butterfly fishes. Micropredators can be important vectors for pathogens.
8 Link Type Parasitic Castration A consumer individual blocks the reproduction of the resource individual (host). Thus, while they reduce host fitness to zero, parasitic castrators do not necessarily reduce survivorship of the stolen host body. The effect on the host is intensity-independent in that there is no additive reproductive effect of additional parasitic castrators on the host. Examples: digenean trematode parthenitae, bopyrid isopods, rhizocephalan barnacles, most strepsipterans.
8 Link Type Pathogen Infection A consumer individual infects a single resource individual (host) and then multiplies within that host. Death of the host will ensue unless its defensive mechanisms or external forces (e.g. other consumers) limit the infection. The effects are intensity-independent, as the outcome may result from a single infectious agent (or inoculum). These consumers are appropriately modeled using microparasite models (Anderson and May, 1979). Examples: smallpox, diphtheria, malaria, lice, scale insects,�Gyrodactylus�monogenean flatworms.
8 Link Type Macroparasitism A consumer individual infects an individual host, does not necessarily cause the death of its host and does not reduce the fitness of the host to zero. Also it is not trophically transmissible to other hosts. Impact on the host is intensity-dependent, These consumers are appropriately modeled using macroparasite models (May and Anderson, 1979). Examples: adult cestodes, Ichthyopthirius ciliates, corn borers, whip worms, fleas, most parasitic copepods.
8 Link Type Pollination An interaction in which a consumer individual facilitates the fertilization of a resource individual. The brevity of this interaction distinguishes it from symbiotic (durable) mutualisms. Examples: bees, hummingbirds.
8 Link Type Parasitoid Infection A consumer individual kills only a single resource (host) individual. Its impact on the host is intensity-independent. Examples: parasitoid wasp larvae, bacteriophages, insect iridoviruses, pasteurella viruses, nematomorphs. If the host is an adult, reproduction ceases before host death.
8 Link Type Commensalism A (non-trophic) interaction between a symbiont and its individual host, where the symbiont does not negatively impact host fitness. Examples: clausidiid copepods living on exoskeletons of burrowing shrimp, trematode metacercariae encysting on the exoskeleton of a crab.
8 Link Type Trophically Transmitted Parasitic Castration An infectious consumer individual blocks a host�s reproduction and requires that its host be consumed by an appropriate predator host for lifecycle completion. Trophically transmitted parasitic castrators often modify host to increase trophic transmission to the predator host. Examples: Schistocephalus�tapeworm pleroceroid larvae, some microphallid trematodes in molluscan hosts.
8 Link Type Trophically Transmitted Pathogen Infection An infectious consumer individual multiplies within a resource individual (host) and requires that the host be consumed by an appropriate predator host in order to complete its lifecycle. Trophically transmitted pathogens often modify host behavior to increase trophic transmission to the predator host. Examples: multilocular hydatid tapeworm cysts, Toxoplamsa in intermediate hosts.�
8 Link Type Trophically Transmitted Parasitism An infectious consumer on a resource (host), where the consumer requires its host to be consumed by an appropriate predator host to complete its life cycle. Its effect on the host is intensity-dependent. Trophically transmitted parasites often modify host behavior to increase trophic transmission to the next (predator) host. Examples: most larval tapeworms, most trematode metacercariae, Guinea worms in copepods.�
8 Link Type Trophically Transmitted Commensalism The non-trophic interaction between a commensal and its host resource individual where, in order to complete its life cycle, the commensal requires that its host resource individual be consumed by an appropriate predator or micropredator.�
8 Link Type Concomitant Predation on Symbionts A consumer individual preys on a resource individual, and thus consumes the resource individual's symbionts. This interaction describes the fate of the symbionts that are not able to escape or use the attacking consumer as a resource.
8 Link Type Trophic Transmission A consumer individual consumes a free-living infectious agent or trophically transmitted infectious agent that is able to infect it, thus further the infectious agent's life cycle. This describes the transmission event between the appropriate predator host and the trophically transmitted parasite. This is opposed to trophically transmitted parasitic castration/pathogen infection/parasitism/commensalism, which describe the interaction between the parasite and the host that is preyed upon during trophic transmission. It is similar to Concomitant Predation on Symbionts in that it describes ingestion of a parasite by a consumer, but differs in that this ingestion can lead to transmission of the parasite from the prey to the consumer. Likewise, it is similar to Predation on free-living non-feeding parasite stages except that consumption of the free-living stage leads to transmission of the parasite.
8 Link Type Predation on free-living non-feeding stages A consumer individual consumes free-living non-feeding stages, that are not infectious to the consumer individual.
8 Link Type Predation on commensal non-feeding stages A consumer individual attacking non-feeding commensals without harming their symbiont resource.
8 Link Type Detritivory A consumer individual feeds on or breaks down dead animal and plant matter. Examples: many fungi, dung beetles, vultures.
8 Link Type Parasite Intraguild Trophic Interaction An infectious agent attacks and kills (usually consuming) another infectious agent within the same symbiont. Examples: larval trematodes, parasitoid wasps.
8 Link Type Intimate and Durable Mutualism The positive trophic interaction between a symbiont and its host symbiote. Examples: hermatypic corals and zooxanthellae.
8 Link Type Facultative Micropredation The outcome of a feeding interaction of a micropredator depends on the relative size of the prey or host individual.� On a large host the consumer is a micropredator, but on a small prey the consumer is a predator. The relative sizes determining feeding outcomes are system specific. Related terms used in system and taxon specific contexts include browser, grazer and sublethal predator. Examples: vampire bats, lampreys, fang blennies.�
9 Link Evidence Observed The link was directly observed in the field, through gut content analysis, or through parasitological examination
9 Link Evidence Inferred The link was inferred to exist in the system either because it was observed at other localities, observed under experimental conditions, or was based on expert opinion.�
9 Link Evidence Modeled The link was included when similar species interactions were used as models for this particular interaction.
9 Link Evidence Speculated The link is inferred by general knowledge of the taxon, but could be inaccurate. "Speculated" in these webs is only employed for 10 links concerning uncertain feeding biology of some unidentified polychaete larvae: assuming they prey on phytoplankton, versus being non-feeding.
10 Link Evidence Notes nominal A qualitative description of the link evidence source.
11 Link Frequency interval numeric� For observed links, the proportion of times that the link was observed (e.g. the proportion of consumer guts within which the resource species was present).�
12 Link N integer The number of consumers that were examined to detect this particular link.
13 Diet Fraction interval numeric� The fraction of the consumer's diet (e.g., in terms of biomass/year) comprised by the resource node.
14 Consumption Rate interval numeric� The rate at which the interaction occurs, explicitly expressed in numbers, biomass or energy per unit time.
15 Vector From nominal numeric The Node ID of the vector necessary for a parasitic feeding link to occur. For instance, enter the Node ID for mosquito here if the link is malaria-human. If more than one vector can lead to this type of parasitism, there will be multiple rows repeated here, one for each prey type. Note, in many cases, this will lead to duplicate links, which may need to be considered in analyses.
16 Prey From nominal numeric The Node ID of prey needed to be consumed for a particular parasite-prey interaction to occur (via trophic transmission). If more than one prey can lead to parasitism, there will be multiple rows repeated here, one for each prey type. Note, in many cases, this will lead to duplicate links, which may need to be considered in analyses.