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 3C. Link Type Definitions. LinkID and LinkType, headers for columns 11 and 12 in the links data set.
| Link Type ID | Link Type | Link Type Definition |
| 1 | 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. |
| 2 | Social Predation | Two or more conspecific individual predators cooperate to kill and consume a single individual of the prey species. Examples: wolves, army ants.� |
| 3 | 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. |
| 4 | 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. |
| 5 | 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. |
| 6 | 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. |
| 7 | 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 | 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. |
| 9 | 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. |
| 10 | 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. |
| 11 | 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.� |
| 12 | 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.� |
| 13 | 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.� |
| 14 | 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. |
| 15 | 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. |
| 16 | Predation on free-living non-feeding stages | A consumer individual consumes free-living non-feeding stages, that are not infectious to the consumer individual. |
| 17 | Predation on commensal non-feeding stages | A consumer individual attacking non-feeding commensals without harming their symbiont resource. |
| 18 | Detritivory | A consumer individual feeds on or breaks down dead animal and plant matter. Examples: many fungi, dung beetles, vultures. |
| 19 | Parasite Intraguild Trophic Interaction | An infectious agent attacks and kills (usually consuming) another infectious agent within the same symbiont. Examples larval trematodes, parasitoid wasps. |
| 20 | Intimate and Durable Mutualism | The positive trophic interaction between a symbiont and its host symbiote. Examples: hermatypic corals and zooxanthellae. |
| 21 | 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.� |