HOW DO FOOD WEBS DIFFER?
Each field, forest, or pasture has a unique soil food web with a particular proportion of bacteria, fungi, and other groups, and a particular level of complexity within each group of organisms. These differences are the result of soil, vegetation, and climate factors, as well as land management practices. (See figure of food webs in different ecosystems.
Each field, forest, or pasture has a unique soil food web with a particular proportion of bacteria, fungi, and other groups, and a particular level of complexity within each group of organisms. These differences are the result of soil, vegetation, and climate factors, as well as land management practices.. The “structure” of a food web is the composition and relative numbers of organisms in each group within the soil system. Each type of ecosystem has a characteristic food web structure. . What Is Food Web Complexity? Food web complexity is a factor of both the number of species and the number of different kinds of species in the soil. For example, a soil with ten species of bacterial-feeding nematodes is less complex than a soil with ten nematode species that includes bacterial-feeders, fungal-feeders, and predatory nematodes. Land management practices can alter the number of functional groups – or complexity – in the soil. Intensively managed systems, such as cropland, have varied nu
