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🐟 Interactive Marine Food Web Dynamics

Interactive 3D marine food web where adjusting the population of one species, such as a keystone predator, with a slider shows effects cascading up and down connected trophic levels.

Ecology & Conservation Biology3DModerate60 FPS💧 Water

A 3D marine food web spanning phytoplankton to apex predators, where adjusting a keystone species' population sends an alternating boom-and-bust cascade rippling along its feeding chain.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Predators one link away from a keystone species lose population under stronger predation pressure, while species two links away gain population once released from their own predator's control — a classic alternating trophic cascade.

🎮 How to Use

Pick a keystone species — orca, sea otter, or ochre sea star — then drag its population slider up or down and watch connected clusters grow, shrink, and glow green or red along the highlighted feeding chain.

💡 Did You Know?

The ochre sea star (Pisaster ochraceus) is the species that gave ecologists the very term "keystone species" after Robert Paine's tide-pool removal experiments in the 1960s.

⚙ Under the hood

Manipulate the populations of key marine species within a dynamic 3D simulation, witnessing how changes in one population's abundance trigger cascading effects throughout the entire food web, demonstrating ecological interdependence.

trophic-webfood-webmarine-ecologykeystone-speciespopulation-dynamicsecology

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install