Reddening in action: Exploring color changes in food web dynamics

Abstract

In recent decades, the role of environmental variation in population dynamics has gained attention. This study investigates how differently colored environmental noise affects species dynamics in food webs generated using the Niche model. We explore aquatic ecosystems with and without fish age-structure and examine the correlation between the color index and trophic position. Using an allometric trophic network approach, we analyze biomass time-series data. Our results show that reddening with increasing trophic position occurs in all food webs except those with age-structured fish, which show different patterns. We also find that autocorrelation increases from the bottom to the top of the food webs. This study provides insights into how environmental noise and fish age-structure influence species dynamics in aquatic ecosystems.