The ecology of water‐filled treeholes in Australian rainforests: Food web reassembly as a measure of community recovery after disturbance

Ten water‐filled tree holes in a subtropical rainforest were emptied out thereby imposing a major perturbation on the community of organisms which occupied these habitat units. During the process of food web reassembly following this disturbance, the average number of predator species in the web increased as did the average number of prey species. Predator‐prey ratios increased in magnitude with the number of days after the disturbance. Furthermore, the characteristic mean predator‐prey ratio of the original community was gradually restored as the food web reassembled. The number of prey species was found to be a better predictor of the number of predator species during community recovery than vice versa. The increasing number of trophic links in the food web over the period of reassembly, due mainly to the increase in the number of predacious species in the web, provides a good overall measure of community recovery. The paper discusses the use of relationships among the food web statistics described within a model of food web reassembly. Such a model can be used to assess the rate of recovery of a community after a disturbance of the food web at the regional level of resolution. Further, the question of whether or not the rate of community recovery can be used to estimate ecosystem recovery with the aid of food web statistics is examined.