Environment Canada, St Lawrence Centre, 105 McGill Street, 7th Floor, Montreal, Quebec,CanadH2Y 2E7.
Trends Ecol Evol. 1997 Aug;12(8):320-5. doi: 10.1016/S0169-5347(97)01080-X.
Parasites have the capacity to regulate host populations and may be important determinants of community structure, yet they are usually neglected in studies of food webs. Parasites can provide much of the information on host biology, such as diet and migration, that is necessary to construct accurate webs. Because many parasites have complex life cycles that involve several different hosts, and often depend on trophic interactions for transmission, parasites provide complementary views of web structure and dynamics. Incorporation of parasites in food webs can substantially after baste web properties, Including connectance, chain length and proportions of top and basal species, and can allow the testing of specific hypotheses related to food-web dynamics.
寄生虫具有调节宿主种群的能力，可能是群落结构的重要决定因素，但在食物网研究中通常被忽视。寄生虫可以提供有关宿主生物学的大量信息，例如饮食和迁移，这些信息对于构建准确的网络是必要的。由于许多寄生虫具有涉及多个不同宿主的复杂生命周期，并且通常依赖于营养相互作用进行传播，因此寄生虫为网络结构和动态提供了互补的观点。将寄生虫纳入食物网中可以极大地改变网络属性，包括连接度、链长以及顶和基物种的比例，并可以允许测试与食物网动态相关的特定假设。
