Abstract
ECOLOGICAL food chains are typically short, consisting of not more than four or five trophic levels. This is usually explained by a reduction in the energy which is available to successive links in the food chain1,2. In contrast, we believe that the number of trophic levels is constrained by population dynamics and not by ecological energetics.
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PIMM, S., LAWTON, J. Number of trophic levels in ecological communities. Nature 268, 329–331 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1038/268329a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/268329a0
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