Visualizing Ecosystem Energy Flow in Complex Food Web Networks: A Comparison of Three Alaskan Large Marine Ecosystems

Oceanic food webs are often depicted as network graphs, with the major organisms or functional groups displayed as nodes and the fluxes of between them as the edges. However, the large number of nodes and edges and high connectance of many management-oriented food webs coupled with graph layout algorithms poorly-suited to certain desired characteristics of food web visualizations often lead to hopelessly tangled diagrams that convey little information other than, "It's complex." Here, I combine several new graph visualization techniques-- including a new node layout alorithm based on a trophic similarity (quantification of shared predator and prey) and trophic level, divided edge bundling for edge routing, and intelligent automated placement of labels-- to create a much clearer visualization of the important fluxes through a food web. The technique will be used to highlight the differences in energy flow within three Alaskan Large Marine Ecosystems (the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, and Aleutian Islands) that include very similar functional groups but unique energy pathways.