Symmetrical web of Carpinteria Salt Marsh

The study was conducted in Carpinteria Salt Marsh Reserve, Carpinteria, Santa Barbara County, California. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of parasites on food-web topology. The results are reported in detail in Lafferty et al (Lafferty, 2006) with other publications forthcoming which examine connectance, chain length, vulnerability, etc. This publication also details how taxa and links were selected for inclusion and provides additional information on the species lists. This data sets is part of the NCEAS hosted online Interaction Web Database at http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/interactionweb/index.html.

Lafferty, K. D., R. F. Hechinger, J. C. Shaw, K. L. Whitney and A. M. Kuris, 2006, Food webs and parasites in a salt marsh ecosystem. Disease ecology: community structure and pathogen dynamics (eds S. Collinge and C. Ray). Oxford University Press, Oxford.