| Summary: | Food webs and meso-scale motifs allow us to understand the structure of ecological communities and define species' roles within them. This species-level perspective on networks permits tests for relationships between species' traits and their patterns of direct and indirect interactions. Such relationships could allow us to predict food-web structure based on more easily-obtained trait information. Here we calculated the roles of species (as vectors of motif position frequencies) in six well-resolved marine food webs and identified the motif positions associated with the greatest variation in species' roles. We then tested whether the frequencies of these positions varied with species' traits. Despite the coarse-grained traits we used, our approach identified several strong associations between traits and motifs. Feeding environment was a key trait in our models and may shape species' roles by affecting encounter probabilities. Incorporating environment into future food web models may improve predictions of an unknown network structure. Please note: The .xls versions of the food webs initially uploaded are missing some columns. Please use the updated .csv versions of the food webs instead. Trait and role data file Species traits and frequencies of each motif position. Position columns are labelled R1 through R30, with position numbers as in Fig. 1 of the main text associated with this data. full_data.csv Kongsfjorden food web Food web for the Kongsfjord. Predator names are given in the first row, prey names in the first column. Values of 1 indicate a link. Data compiled by Ute Jacob (not previously published). kongsfjorden_spames.xls Lough Hyne food web Lough Hyne food web with genus names and ITIS ID numbers. Names and IDs for predators are given in the first two rows while names and IDs for prey are given in the first two columns. Values of 1 indicate feeding links. Data compiled by Ute Jacob (not previously published). loughhyne_spnames.xls Reef food web Food web for the Caribbean Reef. Predator names are ...
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