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1. Food web interactions are complex and can respond to environmental changes in unpredictable ways that do not necessarily equate to the individual responses of each of the components of the food web. 2. Biomass can be used to evaluate the productivity of the three individual trophic levels, in the form of the Net Generational Productivity (NGP) and the performance of the entire food web with the newly developed tri‐trophic food web performance ratio (?3t). 3. These parameters were used to evaluate the performance of nine plant‐based tri‐trophic food webs composed of: potato, Solanum tuberosum L. and two cultivars of bell pepper Capsicum annuum L; three biotypes of the aphid Macrosiphum euphorbiae Thomas (Hemiptera: Aphididae) and the parasitoid wasp Aphidius ervi (Haliday) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae). 4. The NGP showed that the thermal window for biomass productivity for each trophic level is different and is reduced by approximately 4 °C with respect to the inferior level. Aphidius ervi had the smallest thermal window for biomass productivity and development. 5. The present results showed that the performance (?3t) of the tested food webs is influenced in a top‐down fashion, where the intra‐specific variation of the food web, namely the host plant, played a major role in the productivity of each of the subsequent trophic levels. 6. The ?3t suggested that exposure to high and low temperatures might severely affect the effectiveness of A. ervi as a biocontrol agent of the aphid M. euphorbiae in bell pepper and potato crops.  相似文献   

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Synthesis Metacommunity theory aims to elucidate the relative influence of local and regional‐scale processes in generating diversity patterns across the landscape. Metacommunity research has focused largely on assemblages of competing organisms within a single trophic level. Here, we test the ability of metacommunity models to predict the network structure of the aquatic food web found in the leaves of the northern pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea. The species‐sorting and patch‐dynamics models most accurately reproduced nine food web properties, suggesting that local‐scale interactions play an important role in structuring Sarracenia food webs. Our approach can be applied to any well‐resolved food web for which data are available from multiple locations. The metacommunity framework explores the relative influence of local and regional‐scale processes in generating diversity patterns across the landscape. Metacommunity models and empirical studies have focused mostly on assemblages of competing organisms within a single trophic level. Studies of multi‐trophic metacommunities are predominantly restricted to simplified trophic motifs and rarely consider entire food webs. We tested the ability of the patch‐dynamics, species‐sorting, mass‐effects, and neutral metacommunity models, as well as three hybrid models, to reproduce empirical patterns of food web structure and composition in the complex aquatic food web found in the northern pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea. We used empirical data to determine regional species pools and estimate dispersal probabilities, simulated local food‐web dynamics, dispersed species from regional pools into local food webs at rates based on the assumptions of each metacommunity model, and tested their relative fits to empirical data on food‐web structure. The species‐sorting and patch‐dynamics models most accurately reproduced nine food web properties, suggesting that local‐scale interactions were important in structuring Sarracenia food webs. However, differences in dispersal abilities were also important in models that accurately reproduced empirical food web properties. Although the models were tested using pitcher‐plant food webs, the approach we have developed can be applied to any well‐resolved food web for which data are available from multiple locations.  相似文献   

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The direct and indirect regulation of primary productivity has been well established in autotrophic‐based ecosystems; however, less is known about the processes affecting decomposers in detrital‐based ecosystems. Because, small headwater, woodland streams are a dominate feature in most ecosystems and are tightly linked to terrestrial detritus, understanding decomposer‐mediated functions in these systems is critical for understanding carbon processes across the landscape. In this light, we conducted a microcosm and mesocosm experiment to test the direct and indirect food web effects on decomposers in small stream ecosystems. The results from the microcosm experiment supported an existing literature, demonstrating that nutrients directly stimulate decomposers and that microbivores directly reduce decomposers. Based on well‐founded food web theory in autotrophic systems, we predicted that fishes from different trophic‐functional guilds would indirectly stimulate decomposers by enhancing dissolved nutrients and by reducing microbivore densities. Our mesocosm experiment partially supported these predictions. Specifically, we found that fishes that consumed mostly terrestrial foods increased decomposers from the bottom–up by enhancing allochthonous nutrient loading into the stream ecosystems. Contrary to our predictions, however, predatory fishes that consume microbivores did not increase decomposers from the top–down. Rather, in streams with the predatory fish species, microbivores increased (rather than decreased) on leaf litter. This may have resulted from an experimental artifact associated with refuge provided by leaf packs. In conclusion, our data demonstrate that decomposers are regulated by similar direct and indirect processes important in autotrophic‐based ecosystems. This provides further evidence that food web processes can regulate leaf decomposition and flux of detrital carbon through ecosystems.  相似文献   

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Due to climate warming, many plant species shift ranges towards higher latitudes. Plants can disperse faster than most soil biota, however, little is known about how range‐expanding plants in the new range will establish interactions with the resident soil food web. In this paper we examine how the soil nematode community from the new range responds to range‐expanding plant species compared to related natives. We focused on nematodes, because they are important components in various trophic levels of the soil food web, some feeding on plant roots, others on microbes or on invertebrates. We expected that range expanding plant species have fewer root‐feeding nematodes, as predicted by enemy release hypothesis. We therefore expected that range expanders affect the taxonomic and functional composition of the nematode community, but that these effects would diminish with increasing trophic position of nematodes in the soil food web. We exposed six range expanders (including three intercontinental exotics) and nine related native plant species to soil from the invaded range and show that range expanders on average had fewer root‐feeding nematodes per unit root biomass than related natives. The range expanders showed resistance against rather than tolerance for root‐feeding nematodes from the new range. On the other hand, the overall taxonomic and functional nematode community composition was influenced by plant species rather than by plant origin. The plant identity effects declined with trophic position of nematodes in the soil food web, as plant feeders were influenced more than other feeding guilds. We conclude that range‐expanding plant species can have fewer root‐feeding nematodes per unit root biomass than related natives, but that the taxonomic and functional nematode community composition is determined more by plant identity than by plant origin. Plant species identity effects decreased with trophic position of nematodes in the soil food web.  相似文献   

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Theory suggests that more complex food webs promote stability and can buffer the effects of perturbations, such as drought, on soil organisms and ecosystem functions. Here, we tested experimentally how soil food web trophic complexity modulates the response to drought of soil functions related to carbon cycling and the capture and transfer below‐ground of recent photosynthate by plants. We constructed experimental systems comprising soil communities with one, two or three trophic levels (microorganisms, detritivores and predators) and subjected them to drought. We investigated how food web trophic complexity in interaction with drought influenced litter decomposition, soil CO2 efflux, mycorrhizal colonization, fungal production, microbial communities and soil fauna biomass. Plants were pulse‐labelled after the drought with 13C‐CO2 to quantify the capture of recent photosynthate and its transfer below‐ground. Overall, our results show that drought and soil food web trophic complexity do not interact to affect soil functions and microbial community composition, but act independently, with an overall stronger effect of drought. After drought, the net uptake of 13C by plants was reduced and its retention in plant biomass was greater, leading to a strong decrease in carbon transfer below‐ground. Although food web trophic complexity influenced the biomass of Collembola and fungal hyphal length, 13C enrichment and the net transfer of carbon from plant shoots to microbes and soil CO2 efflux were not affected significantly by varying the number of trophic groups. Our results indicate that drought has a strong effect on above‐ground–below‐ground linkages by reducing the flow of recent photosynthate. Our results emphasize the sensitivity of the critical pathway of recent photosynthate transfer from plants to soil organisms to a drought perturbation, and show that these effects may not be mitigated by the trophic complexity of soil communities, at least at the level manipulated in this experiment.  相似文献   

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  1. Realized trophic niches of predators are often characterized along a one‐dimensional range in predator–prey body mass ratios. This prey range is constrained by an “energy limit” and a “subdue limit” toward small and large prey, respectively. Besides these body mass ratios, maximum speed is an additional key component in most predator–prey interactions.
  2. Here, we extend the concept of a one‐dimensional prey range to a two‐dimensional prey space by incorporating a hump‐shaped speed‐body mass relation. This new “speed limit” additionally constrains trophic niches of predators toward fast prey.
  3. To test this concept of two‐dimensional prey spaces for different hunting strategies (pursuit, group, and ambush predation), we synthesized data on 63 terrestrial mammalian predator–prey interactions, their body masses, and maximum speeds.
  4. We found that pursuit predators hunt smaller and slower prey, whereas group hunters focus on larger but mostly slower prey and ambushers are more flexible. Group hunters and ambushers have evolved different strategies to occupy a similar trophic niche that avoids competition with pursuit predators. Moreover, our concept suggests energetic optima of these hunting strategies along a body mass axis and thereby provides mechanistic explanations for why there are no small group hunters (referred to as “micro‐lions”) or mega‐carnivores (referred to as “mega‐cheetahs”).
  5. Our results demonstrate that advancing the concept of prey ranges to prey spaces by adding the new dimension of speed will foster a new and mechanistic understanding of predator trophic niches and improve our predictions of predator–prey interactions, food web structure, and ecosystem functions.
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  1. Almost all organisms grow in size during their lifetime and switch diets, trophic positions, and interacting partners as they grow. Such ontogenetic development introduces life‐history stages and flows of biomass between the stages through growth and reproduction. However, current research on complex food webs rarely considers life‐history stages. The few previously proposed methods do not take full advantage of the existing food web structural models that can produce realistic food web topologies.
  2. We extended the niche model developed by Williams and Martinez (Nature, 2000, 404, 180–183) to generate food webs that included trophic species with a life‐history stage structure. Our method aggregated trophic species based on niche overlap to form a life‐history structured population; therefore, it largely preserved the topological structure of food webs generated by the niche model. We applied the theory of allometric predator–prey body mass ratio and parameterized an allometric bioenergetic model augmented with biomass flow between stages via growth and reproduction to study the effects of a stage structure on the stability of food webs.
  3. When life‐history stages were linked via growth and reproduction, more food webs persisted, and persisting food webs tended to retain more trophic species. Topological differences between persisting linked and unlinked food webs were small to modest. The slopes of biomass spectra were lower, and weak interaction links were more prevalent in the linked food webs than the unlinked ones, suggesting that a life‐history stage structure promotes characteristics that can enhance stability of complex food webs.
  4. Our results suggest a positive relationship between the complexity and stability of complex food webs. A life‐history stage structure in food webs may play important roles in dynamics of and diversity in food webs.
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