South Florida Food Webs
Description
These data consisted of networks of carbon exchange as they normally occur in the ecosystems of South Florida. Separate networks for wet and dry seasons were created for the ecosystems of the cypress wetlands, the Everglades gramminoid marshes, the mangrove estuaries, and the shallows of Florida Bay. Vertices in these networks represent major components of the ecosystem, and edges represent the tranfers of material or energy between the components.
Collection
The food-webs were selected from the R.E. Ulanowicz's Collection from the Ecosystem Network Analysis site and from ATLSS - Network Analysis of Trophic Dynamics in South Florida Ecosystems. Trophic flow networks are graphical and mathematical depictions of the answers to the questions, "Who eats whom, and by how much?" Typically, diagrams of flow networks are comprised of boxes that represent the major components of the ecosystem. The boxes are connected by arrows, which indicate the transfers of material or energy between the components. Usually, each arrow is labelled with the magnitude of its transfer as averaged over a prescribed period of time.
Accordingly, the University of Maryland contingent of ATLSS investigators assembled very detailed networks of carbon exchanges as they normally occur in the ecosystems of South Florida. Networks consisting of more than 60 important compartments were estimated for each of four habitats, using existing data and ongoing field work. Separate networks for wet and dry seasons were created for the ecosystems of the forested wetlands, the gramminoid marshes, the mangrove estuaries, and the shallows of Florida Bay. Each network will be a snapshot of the trophic flows and biomasses as averaged both over the hydroperiod in question and over the spatial domain of that particular biotope.
More information can be found in References.
Atrributes
In each of the four different ecosystem of South Florida, we have two different networks, one for the dry season and one for the wet season. A vertex in each of the networks constitutes a major component of the respective environment. Vertices have associated bio-masses, stored as a vertex attribute. In addition vertices are partitioned in different types as follows:
1 - Living/producing compartment 2 - Other compartment 3 - Input 4 - Output 5 - Respiration
This type classification is also represented by a vertex attribute. Each of the edges in the networks also have associated attribute which represents the magnitude of transfer netween two compartments.
Licenses and Citation
South Florida Food Webs (1998) http://www.networkdata.isc.ci.edu
If the source of the data set does not specified otherwise, this data set is protected by the Creative Commons License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/.
Source
Vladimir Batagelj and Andrej Mrvar (2006): Pajek datasets
http://vlado.fmf.uni-lj.si/pub/networks/data/.
References
Ulanowicz, R.E., C. Bondavalli and M.S. Egnotovich. (1998) Network Analysis of Trophic Dynamics in South Florida Ecosystem, FY 97: The Florida Bay Ecosystem. Ref. No. [UMCES]CBL 98-123. Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, Solomons, MD 20688-0038 USA.
When publishing results obtained using this data set the original authors should be cited. In addition this package should be cited as:
Christopher L. DuBois, Emma S. Spiro, Zack Almquist, Mark S. Handcock, David Hunter, Carter T. Butts, Steven M. Goodreau, and Martina Morris. 2003 netdata: A Collection of Network Data