Preface-- Robert T. Paine; List of contributors-- Introduction: Food Webs: What do they tell us about the world?-- Kirk O. Winemiller and Gary A. Polis; Section I: Detritus and nutrients: Detritus and nutrients in food webs-- Michael J. Vanni and Peter C. DeRuiter; Food webs and nutrient cycling in soils: interactions and positive feedbacks-- Janne Bengtsson, Heikki Setala and D.W. Zheng; Energetics of detritivory and microbivory in soil in theory and practice-- David C. Coleman; Integrating the microbial loop and the classic food chain into a realistic planktonic food web-- Karen G. Porter; Trophic structure and carbon flow dynamics in the pelagic community of a large lake-- Ursula Gaedke, Dietmar Straile, and Claudia Pahl-Wostl; Biogeochemistry and trophic ecology: a new food web diagram-- Robert W. Sterner, James J. Elser, Thomas H. Chrzanowski, John H. Schampel, and Nicholas B. George; Nutrient transport and recycling by consumers in lake food webs: implications for algal communities-- Michael J. Vanni; Food web structure and littoral zone coupling to pelagic trophic cascades-- Daniel E. Schindler, Stephen R. Carpenter, Kathryn L. Cottingham, Xi He, James R. Hodgson, James F. Kitchell, and Patricia A. Soranno; Section II: Interaction of productivity and consumption: Interaction of productivity and consumption-- Donald L. DeAngelis, Lennart Persson, and Amy D. Rosemond; Dynamics and interactions in food webs with adaptive foragers-- Peter A. Abrams; Nonlinear food web models and their responses to increased basal productivity-- Roger Arditi and Jerzy Michalski; The relative importance of resource limitation and predator limitation in food chains-- Craig W. Osenberg and Gary G. Mittelbach; Indirect effects of herbivores modify predicted effects of resources and consumption on plant biomass-- Amy D. Rosemond; Food web dynamics on some small subtropical islands: effects of top and intermediate predators-- David A. Spiller and Thomas W. Schoener; Top down from underground? The underappreciated influence of subterranean food webs on aboveground ecology -- Donald R. Strong, John L. Maron, and Peter G. Connors; Section III: Causes and Effects: Causes and effects in food webs: do generalities exist?-- Janne Bengtsson, and Neo Martinez ; Assessing the relative importance of trophic links in food webs-- David G. Raffaelli and Stephen J. Hall; Food webs and perturbation experiments: theory and practice-- Peter Yodzis; Energetics and stability in belowground food webs-- Peter C. DeRuiter, Anje-Margriet Neutel and John C. Moore; What equilibrium behavior of Lotka-Volterra models does not tell us about food webs -- Alan Hastings; Effects of food chain length and omnivory on population dynamics in experimental food webs-- Peter J. Morin and Sharon P. Lawler; Structure and dynamics of arctic-subarctic grazing webs in relation to primary productivity-- Lauri Oksanen, Tarja Oksanen, Per Ekerholm, Jon Moen, Peter Lundberg, Michael Schneider and Maano Aunapuu; Food webs: from the Lindeman paradigm to a taxonomic general theory of ecology-- Steven H. Cousins; Section IV: Temporal and Spatial Scale: Temporal and spatial aspects of food web structure and dynamics-- Robert D. Holt; Control of interaction strength in marine benthic communities-- Bruce A. Menge, Bryon Daley and P.A. Wheeler; Allochthonous input across habitats, subsidized consumers and apparent trophic cascades: examples from the ocean-land interface-- Gary. A. Polis and Stephen D. Hurd; Disturbance and food chain length in rivers-- Mary E. Power, Michael S. Parker and J. Timothy Wootton; Factors driving temporal and spatial variation in aquatic floodplain food webs-- Kirk O. Winemiller; Food webs in space: an island biogeographic perspective-- Robert Holt; Section V: Food webs and applied problems: Food web dynamics and applied problems-- Larry B. Crowder, Douglas P. Reagan and Diana W.