The Effects of Spatial Scale on Trophic Interactions |
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Authors: | Johan Van de Koppel Richard D Bardgett Janne Bengtsson Claudino Rodriguez-Barrueco Max Rietkerk Martin J Wassen Volkmar Wolters |
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Institution: | (1) Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Centre for Estuarine and Marine Ecology, P.O. Box 140, Yerseke, AC, 4400, The Netherlands;(2) Institute of Environmental and Natural Sciences, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, United Kingdom;(3) Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Research, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O.Box 7072, Uppsala, 750 07, Sweden;(4) Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología, CSIC, P.O. Box 257, Salamanca, 37071, Spain;(5) Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development and Innovation, Environmental Sciences, University Utrecht, P.O. Box 80115, Utrecht, TC, 3508, The Netherlands;(6) Department of Animal Ecology, Justus Liebig-University, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 26–32, Giessen, 35392, Germany |
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Abstract: | Food chain models have dominated empirical studies of trophic interactions in the past decades, and have lead to important
insights into the factors that control ecological communities. Despite the importance of food chain models in instigating
ecological investigations, many empirical studies still show a strong deviation from the dynamics that food chain models predict.
We present a theoretical framework that explains some of the discrepancies by showing that trophic interactions are likely
to be strongly influenced by the spatial configuration of consumers and their resources. Differences in the spatial scale
at which consumers and their resources function lead to uncoupling of the population dynamics of the interacting species,
and may explain overexploitation and depletion of resource populations. We discuss how changed land use, likely the most prominent
future stress on natural systems, may affect food web dynamics by interfering with the scale of interaction between consumers
and their resource. |
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Keywords: | spatial scale predator– prey interaction consumer– resource interaction trophic cascade land use |
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