Fig. 2
Construction and expansion of the metaweb. (a) Initial compilation of a species checklist, as well as their upstream taxonomic information for genera and families, and creation of feeding guilds, such as fungi. (b) Empirical data collection process, focusing on information at the species, genus and family level. (c) We expanded links where species were known to consume an organism at the genus level to include all species within the genus (link 1). We additionally inferred links where species were known to consume an organism at the family level, for generalist predators, and filtered by their associations to habitat and vertical stratum within the environment (link 2). Links were also inferred where it was explicitly known that a family of organisms were generalist feeders on feeding guilds, such as fungi (link 3). (d) A final metaweb is assembled using all empirical and inferred links. Icon attribution: Flaticon.com.
