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| Open AccessA density functional theory for ecology across scales
Modelling diverse ecological phenomena across scales with a single mathematical framework is challenging. Here, the authors draw on density functional theory to develop a framework that bridges between mechanistic theories at fine scales and statistical models at large scales.
- Martin-I. Trappe
- & Ryan A. Chisholm
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| Open AccessBlue and green food webs respond differently to elevation and land use
Aquatic (blue) and terrestrial (green) food webs are part of the same landscape, but it remains unclear whether they respond similarly to shared environmental gradients. Using long-term monitoring data from Switzerland and a metaweb approach, this study reveals how inferred blue and green food webs exhibit different properties along an elevation gradient and among land-use types.
- Hsi-Cheng Ho
- , Jakob Brodersen
- & Florian Altermatt
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| Open AccessMetabolic plasticity can amplify ecosystem responses to global warming
Organisms can alter their physiological response to warming. Here, the authors show that the ability to raise metabolic rate following exposure to warming is inverse to body size and provide a mathematical model which estimates that metabolic plasticity could amplify energy flux through ecosystems in response to warming.
- Rebecca L. Kordas
- , Samraat Pawar
- & Eoin J. O’Gorman
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| Open AccessAn ecological network approach to predict ecosystem service vulnerability to species losses
Food web responses to species losses have the potential to cascade to ecosystem services. Here the authors apply ecological network robustness modelling to ecosystem services in salt marsh ecosystems, finding that species with supporting roles are critical to robustness of both food webs and ecosystem services.
- Aislyn A. Keyes
- , John P. McLaughlin
- & Laura E. Dee
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| Open AccessFew keystone plant genera support the majority of Lepidoptera species
Not all plants are equally able to support native insects. Here, the authors use data on interactions among >12,000 Lepidoptera species and >2000 plant genera across the United States, showing that few plant genera host the majority of Lepidoptera species; this information is used to suggest priorities for plant restoration.
- Desiree L. Narango
- , Douglas W. Tallamy
- & Kimberley J. Shropshire
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| Open AccessExtreme rainfall events alter the trophic structure in bromeliad tanks across the Neotropics
The amount and frequency of rainfall structures aquatic food webs. Here the authors show that in tropical tank bromeliads, lower trophic levels are more abundant in stable rainfall conditions, while biomass pyramids are inverted in conditions with periodic droughts.
- Gustavo Q. Romero
- , Nicholas A. C. Marino
- & Diane S. Srivastava
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| Open AccessClimate shapes mammal community trophic structures and humans simplify them
Broad scale patterns in the distribution of animal community functional properties could be determined by climate and disrupted by human activities. Here the authors show global patterns in large-mammal trophic structure related to climate variation, which human activities simplify in predictable ways.
- Manuel Mendoza
- & Miguel B. Araújo
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| Open AccessThe stability of multitrophic communities under habitat loss
Habitat loss could affect ecological communities in variable ways depending on its structure. Here, the authors show that contiguous rather than random loss is more damaging to the stability of multitrophic communities, regardless of the fraction of mutualistic interactions within the community.
- Chris McWilliams
- , Miguel Lurgi
- & Daniel Montoya
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| Open AccessSpecies traits and network structure predict the success and impacts of pollinator invasions
The role of adaptive foraging in the threat of invasive pollinators to plant-pollinator systems is difficult to characterise. Here, Valdavinos et al. use network modelling to show the importance of foraging efficiency, diet overlap, plant species visitation, and degree of specialism in native pollinators.
- Fernanda S. Valdovinos
- , Eric L. Berlow
- & Neo D. Martinez
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| Open AccessA mechanistic theory for aquatic food chain length
Multiple environmental drivers of food chain length (FCL) have been proposed, but empirical support has been contradictory. Here the authors argue that the magnitude of vertical energy flux in ecological communities underlies two commonly evaluated drivers of FCL and show that the effects of these two drivers are context-dependent.
- Colette L. Ward
- & Kevin S. McCann
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| Open AccessPredicting the effect of habitat modification on networks of interacting species
In a changing world, the ability to predict the impact of environmental change on ecological communities is essential. Here, the authors show that by separating species abundances from interaction preferences, they can predict the effects of habitat modification on the structure of weighted species interaction networks, even with limited data.
- Phillip P. A. Staniczenko
- , Owen T. Lewis
- & Felix Reed-Tsochas
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| Open AccessSoil networks become more connected and take up more carbon as nature restoration progresses
Effects of habitat restoration on belowground organisms and ecosystem processes are poorly understood. Morriën and colleagues show that changes in the composition and network interactions of soil biota lead to improved carbon uptake efficiency when formerly cultivated land is restored.
- Elly Morriën
- , S. Emilia Hannula
- & Wim H. van der Putten
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| Open AccessAnimal diversity and ecosystem functioning in dynamic food webs
Losing animals from food webs could reduce ecosystem function, but drivers of this pattern are difficult to disentangle. With food web simulations, Schneider et al. show that high animal diversity does not release plants from top-down control owing to a balancing effect of increased animal body size.
- Florian D. Schneider
- , Ulrich Brose
- & Christian Guill
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| Open AccessApparent competition drives community-wide parasitism rates and changes in host abundance across ecosystem boundaries
Species sharing a common enemy such as a parasitoid or predator can indirectly affect one another. Here, Frost et al. use quantitative food-web data from communities of caterpillar hosts to show experimentally that apparent competition is important in predicting food-web structure across habitats.
- Carol M. Frost
- , Guadalupe Peralta
- & Jason M. Tylianakis
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| Open AccessNo complexity–stability relationship in empirical ecosystems
A long-standing ecological hypothesis is that complexity should decrease stability in food webs. Here, Jacquet and colleagues analyse over 100 real-world food webs and show that complexity does not decrease stability, but that a high frequency of weak species interactions stabilizes complex food webs.
- Claire Jacquet
- , Charlotte Moritz
- & Dominique Gravel
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| Open AccessConsistent role of weak and strong interactions in high- and low-diversity trophic food webs
High-and low-diversity food webs are thought to differ in their structural stability. Here, the authors use a method that bridges both levels of diversity to show that stability relationships and interaction strength can be consistent between simple and complex trophic networks.
- Gabriel Gellner
- & Kevin S. McCann
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| Open AccessFear of large carnivores causes a trophic cascade
Top predators may indirectly influence ecological processes through fear-induced behavioural changes in their prey. By experimentally manipulating this ‘landscape of fear’, Suraci et al. show that fear of large carnivores in a mesopredator can cause cascading effects down the food web that benefit its prey.
- Justin P. Suraci
- , Michael Clinchy
- & Liana Y. Zanette
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| Open AccessAnthropogenic effects are associated with a lower persistence of marine food webs
Human activity is affecting the diversity and abundance of marine organisms. Here, Gilarranz et al. show that the persistence of marine food webs is reduced by the effects of fishing pressure, human density, and thermal stress.
- Luis J. Gilarranz
- , Camilo Mora
- & Jordi Bascompte
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| Open AccessUsing food-web theory to conserve ecosystems
The influence of species conservation on food webs is less well understood than the effects of species loss. Here, the authors test several indices against optimal food web management and find no current metrics are reliably effective at identifying species conservation priorities.
- E. McDonald-Madden
- , R. Sabbadin
- & H. P. Possingham
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| Open AccessTop consumer abundance influences lake methane efflux
How aquatic communities influence biogeochemical cycling is not well understood. Here, Devlin et al.manipulate the abundance of fish in a whole-lake experiment and show that methane efflux is reduced by the presence of top predators, via a trophic cascade from zooplankton to methanotrophic bacteria.
- Shawn P. Devlin
- , Jatta Saarenheimo
- & Roger I. Jones
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Adaptive rewiring aggravates the effects of species loss in ecosystems
The formation of new feeding links by consumers adapting to the loss of prey is thought to buffer food webs against cascading extinctions. However, Ebenman et al.show that adaptive rewiring can still cause extinction cascades if predators are efficient at capturing rare prey, leading to overexploitation of resources.
- David Gilljam
- , Alva Curtsdotter
- & Bo Ebenman
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Emergence of a novel prey life history promotes contemporary sympatric diversification in a top predator
Intraspecific variation is known to cascade evolutionary change down through food webs, although bottom-up changes are less well described. Here, Brodersenet al. show that life history change in a prey fish species, mediated through anthropogenic activity, can promote phenotypic diversification of its top predator.
- Jakob Brodersen
- , Jennifer G. Howeth
- & David M. Post
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| Open AccessHydrologically driven ecosystem processes determine the distribution and persistence of ecosystem-specialist predators under climate change
Climatic change is predicted to impact moisture-dependent ecosystems. Here Carroll et al. show that a combination of physical, biophysical and ecosystem processes determine the abundance and distribution of three bird species that feed on craneflies in blanket bogs.
- Matthew J. Carroll
- , Andreas Heinemeyer
- & Chris D. Thomas
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| Open AccessPredicting the stability of large structured food webs
Understanding the dynamics of empirical food webs is of central importance for predicting the stability of ecological communities. Here Allesina et al.derive an approximation to accurately predict the stability of large food webs whose structure is built using the cascade model.
- Stefano Allesina
- , Jacopo Grilli
- & Amos Maritan
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| Open AccessFood-web stability signals critical transitions in temperate shallow lakes
How mechanisms underlying food-web stability may influence ecosystem regime shifts is not well understood. Combining food-web and ecosystem modelling, Kuiperet al. show that destabilizing reorganization of a small number of key trophic interactions precede catastrophic changes in shallow lake ecosystems.
- Jan J. Kuiper
- , Cassandra van Altena
- & Wolf M. Mooij
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| Open AccessFunctional group diversity increases with modularity in complex food webs
The influence of functional group diversity on food web structure is less well known than that of biodiversity. Analysing species interactions in a network of salt marsh islands, Montoya et al. show that functional group diversity is higher in more modular networks and varies spatially across the archipelago.
- D. Montoya
- , M.L. Yallop
- & J. Memmott
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| Open AccessImpact of biodiversity loss on production in complex marine food webs mitigated by prey-release
Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships are not well characterized for large marine ecosystems. Using a dynamic model of complex marine food webs, Fung et al. find that release of fish from predation, not competition, is the principal mechanism shaping this relationship.
- Tak Fung
- , Keith D. Farnsworth
- & Axel G. Rossberg
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A freshwater predator hit twice by the effects of warming across trophic levels
Species responses to climatic change are likely to be complex, acting across multiple trophic levels and life stages. Here the authors show that Arctic charr are negatively impacted by trophic mismatches affecting both juveniles and fry, which may be responsible for recent poor catches of this fish.
- Tomas Jonsson
- & Malin Setzer
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Winter and spring controls on the summer food web of the coastal West Antarctic Peninsula
The Western Antarctic Peninsular is subject to climate change, including increased winter temperatures and melting sea ice. In this study, the authors demonstrate that climate change in this area effects bacteria and phytoplankton levels, which culminates in an altered diet for the apex predator, the Adélie penguin.
- Grace K. Saba
- , William R. Fraser
- & Oscar M. Schofield
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Food web expansion and contraction in response to changing environmental conditions
The analysis of food web properties under different environmental conditions informs us how the ecosystem functions. Here, Tunneyet al. use post-glacial lakes as model ecosystems to show how macroscopic patterns of food webs vary with changes in habitat and resource accessibility.
- Tyler D. Tunney
- , Kevin S. McCann
- & Brian J. Shuter