From winter to summer and back: Lessons from the parameterization of a seasonal food web model for the Białowieża forest

A novel approach to parameterizing dynamic food web models in seasonal environments has been successfully demonstrated, offering >80% persistence despite intense competition. The study, conducted on the Białowieża Forest's vertebrate food web, integrates empirical data on 21 predators and 124 prey species into a non-autonomous coupled ordinary differential equations system. This model incorporates time-varying life-history and predation parameters, seasonal diet descriptions, and biomass information, achieving a quantitative match to observed biomasses. The research highlights trade-offs between maximizing persistence, reproducing observed biomasses, and ensuring robustness to sampling errors, while preventing multi-annual cycles through strong predator self-regulation. This work provides a generalizable workflow for parameterizing dynamic food web models in seasonal environments, enhancing predictions of biodiversity responses to environmental changes.

Sauve, A. M. C., & Barraquand, F. (2020). From winter to summer and back: Lessons from the parameterization of a seasonal food web model for the Białowieża forest. Journal of Animal Ecology, 89(7), 1628–1644. Portico. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13227