A food web talk examining structural characteristics of webs that predict stability was hard for me to follow. But it introduced me to the 13 food web motifs: the 13 possible interactions between three species. The speaker, Daniel B. Stouffer, came to the conclusion that persistence of isolated motifs does not predict whether they will contribute to stability in a full food web.

I was thinking, while looking at his slide with the above figure, which comes from Milo, R. et. al. Science 298 (824-827) 2002, that one could write a book with 13 short vignettes about three people and love, using the 13 food web motifs to determine the structure of the emotional webs between the three. And one could call it “The Persistence of Isolated Motifs”.

A food web talk examining structural characteristics of webs that predict stability was hard for me to follow. But it introduced me to the 13 food web motifs: the 13 possible interactions between three species. The speaker, Daniel B. Stouffer, came to the conclusion that persistence of isolated motifs does not predict whether they will contribute to stability in a full food web.

I was thinking, while looking at his slide with the above figure, which comes from Milo, R. et. al. Science 298 (824-827) 2002, that one could write a book with 13 short vignettes about three people and love, using the 13 food web motifs to determine the structure of the emotional webs between the three. And one could call it “The Persistence of Isolated Motifs”.