Ripa Jörgen, Ives Anthony R
Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Theor Popul Biol. 2003 Nov;64(3):369-84. doi: 10.1016/s0040-5809(03)00089-3.
The densities of populations in a community or food web vary as a consequence of both population interactions and environmental (e.g. weather) fluctuations. Populations often respond to the same kinds of environmental fluctuations, and therefore experience correlated environments. Furthermore, some environmental factors change slowly over time, thereby producing positive environmental autocorrelation. We show that the effects of environmental correlation and autocorrelation on the dynamics of the populations in a food web can be large and unintuitive, but can be understood by analyzing the eigenvectors of the community (system) matrix of interactions among populations. For example, environmental correlation and autocorrelation may either obscure or enhance the cyclic dynamics that generally characterize predator-prey interactions even when there is no direct effect of the environment on how species interact. Thus, understanding the population dynamics of species in a food web requires explicit attention to the correlation structure of environmental factors affecting all species.
群落或食物网中种群的密度会因种群间相互作用和环境（如天气）波动而变化。种群常常对同类型的环境波动做出反应，因此经历相关的环境。此外，一些环境因素随时间变化缓慢，从而产生正环境自相关。我们表明，环境相关和自相关对食物网中种群动态的影响可能很大且出人意料，但可以通过分析种群间相互作用的群落（系统）矩阵的特征向量来理解。例如，环境相关和自相关可能会掩盖或增强通常表征捕食者 - 猎物相互作用的周期性动态，即使环境对物种相互作用没有直接影响。因此，理解食物网中物种的种群动态需要明确关注影响所有物种的环境因素的相关结构。
