Ecology 6th Edition by Charles Krebs

Exercise 8

Compare the definitions of a trophic species (see p. 407) and a guild (see p. 402). How does the aggregation of species into trophic species affect the analysis of a food web? Conversely, how would poor taxonomic resolution within species groups affect estimates of connectance in food webs-for example, if species are grouped into categories such as "insects"? Hall and Raffaelli (1993) discuss these problems of aggregation and taxonomic resolution in food web analysis.