Ecological topics related to food webs: a review with emphasis on global freshwater fish communities

Abstract

Understanding the structure and dynamics of freshwater food webs remains a challenge for ecologists, mainly due to factors, mechanisms, and processes that maintain communities must be considered. This study aims to analyze the state-of-the-art on food web on freshwater fish communities through a systematic literature review and applying the co-words bibliometric technique. Particularly, developed countries have increased the study of food webs in the last years. The evaluation of the different ecosystem components like phytoplankton, zooplankton, and aquatic macroinvertebrates are important to considered in food webs, and stable isotope analysis accompanied by stomach content as methodologies. Food web is usually represented by models (e.g., Ecopath with Ecosim) or diagrams (food networks connecting species). Further research is needed on describe food webs in freshwater system from developing countries.