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85 results for “trophic cascade”
Data from: Morphological drivers of trophic cascades
Worldwide, local anthropogenic extinctions have recently been reported to induce trophic cascades, defined as perturbations of top consumers that propagate along food chains down to primary producers. This focus on the effects of top-consumer extinction (i.e. of species presence) ignores potential cascading effects of the rapid morphological changes that may precede extinction. Here, we show in an experimental, three-level food chain including medaka fish, herbivorous zooplankton and unicellular algae that varying body length of a single fish from large (36.3 mm) to small (11.5 mm) induced a stronger trophic cascade than varying an average-sized (23.8 mm) fish from being present to absent. The strength of fish predation on zooplankton scaled quasi linearly (not with a power exponent) with fish body length and associated gape width, suggesting that the resultant trophic cascade was morphology (not metabolism)-dependent. The effect of fish body length was stronger on phyto- than on zooplankton, because large-sized fish had the unique ability to suppress large-sized herbivores, which in turn had high grazing capacities. Hence, our results show that consumer body size, by setting diet breadth, can both drive and magnify the strength of trophic cascades. In contrast, fish body shape had no significant effect on fish predatory performances when its allometric component (the effect of size on shape) was removed. In the wild, human-induced body downsizing of top consumers is widespread, and mitigating the resultant perturbations to ecosystem function and services will require a paradigm shift from preserving species presence towards preserving species size structure.
Data from: Fear mediates trophic cascades: nonconsumptive effects of predators drive aquatic ecosystem function
Predators control prey populations and influence communities and the functioning of ecosystems through a combination of consumptive and nonconsumptive effects. These effects can be locally confined to one ecosystem but can also be extended to neighboring ecosystems. In this study, we investigated the nonconsumptive effects of terrestrial avian predators on the communities of aquatic invertebrates inhabiting bromeliads and on the functioning of these natural ecosystems. Bromeliads with stuffed birds placed nearby showed a decrease in aquatic damselfly larvae abundance and biomass, and we can infer that these changes were caused by antipredator responses. These larvae, which are top predators in bromeliad ecosystems, changed the composition of the entire aquatic invertebrate community. While total species richness, mesopredator richness, and shredder abundance increased in the presence of birds, scraper biomass decreased, possibly as a consequence of the increase in mesopredator richness. High scraper biomass in the absence of birds may have accelerated detrital decomposition, making more nutrients available for bromeliads, which grew more. These results show that nonconsumptive effects triggered by terrestrial predators can cascade down to lower trophic levels and dramatically affect the functioning of aquatic ecosystems, which can in turn alter nutrient provision to terrestrial ecosystems.
Data from: Mammal-induced trophic cascades in invertebrate food webs are modulated by grazing intensity in subalpine grassland
1. Even though mammalian herbivores can exert strong indirect effects on other animals by altering the vegetation, the study of trophic cascades retains a focus on apex predators and their top-down forces. Bottom-up trophic interaction chains induced by mammalian herbivores, particularly in invertebrate food webs, remain largely unexplored. 2. We tested whether effects of mammalian herbivores on the vegetation ricochet back up several trophic levels of the invertebrate food web. We further tested two alternative hypotheses: the strength of herbivore-induced indirect interactions either increases with plant productivity because of a concurrent higher grazing intensity, or it decreases because of a higher plant tolerance to grazing. 3. We progressively excluded large, medium, and small herbivorous mammals from replicated plots of 6 m<sup>2</sup> in productive, intensively grazed short-grass vegetation and less productive, less intensively grazed tall-grass vegetation of subalpine grasslands. We measured vegetation quantity, quality, structure, and composition, and determined the abundance of invertebrate herbivores, detritivores, omnivores, and predators. We used Structural Equation Modelling to test vegetation-mediated cascading effects of the different mammalian herbivores across different trophic groups of invertebrates. 4. In the short-grass vegetation, mammals caused changes in vegetation quantity and thickness. These changes directly affected detritivorous and predatory invertebrate abundance, yet indirectly affected predatory and omnivorous invertebrates through a bottom-up trophic cascade via changes in herbivorous invertebrate abundance. In the tall-grass vegetation, mammal-induced changes in vegetation quality and composition affected detritivorous invertebrates and in turn omnivorous invertebrates, but these cascading effects were weaker than those in the short-grass vegetation. Smaller mammals were at least as important as large mammals in structuring the invertebrate food web. 5. Our results demonstrate that differently sized mammalian herbivores can trigger trophic cascades in the local invertebrate food web. Our findings further support the hypothesis that herbivore-induced indirect interactions are stronger in more productive systems because of higher foraging intensity, as opposed to the hypothesis that a higher grazing tolerance of plants should dampen herbivore-induced indirect interactions in productive systems.
Data from: Cascading spatial and trophic impacts of oak decline on the soil food web
1. Tree defoliation and mortality have considerably increased worldwide during the last decades due to global change drivers such as increasing drought or invasive pests and pathogens. However, the effects of this tree decline on soil food webs are poorly understood. 2. In this study we evaluated the impacts of Quercus suber decline on soil food webs of Mediterranean mixed forests invaded by the exotic oomycete pathogen Phytophthora cinnamomi, using soil nematodes as bioindicator taxa. We used a spatially-explicit neighborhood approach to predict the characteristics of the nematode community (diversity, trophic structure, and several indices indicative of soil food web conditions) as a function of the characteristics of the tree and shrub community (species composition, size and health status). 3. Our results indicate that the process of defoliation and mortality of Q. suber caused significant alterations in the nematode trophic structure increasing the abundance of lower trophic levels (bacterivores, fungivores and herbivores) and decreasing the abundance of higher levels (predators and omnivores). Furthermore, Q. suber decline altered the functional composition of soil communities, producing a setback of the ecological succession in the soil food web to an earlier stage (decrease in the maturity index and increase in the plant-parasitic index), simplified soil food webs (decrease in the structure index), and shifts in the predominant decomposition channel (increase in the fungivores/bacterivores ratio). 4. We also detected contrasting characteristics of the nematode community in neighborhoods dominated by coexistent woody species, which suggests potential for long-term indirect effects on soil food webs due to the substitution of Q. suber by non-declining species. 5. Synthesis: Our study provides novel results that show the major impacts that ongoing health deterioration of dominant tree species can have on the structure and composition of soil food webs in forest systems invaded by exotic pathogens, with cascading consequences for soil biogeochemical processes in both the short- and long-term.
Data from: Contrasting effects of aquatic subsidies on a terrestrial trophic cascade
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Data from: Fear mediates trophic cascades: nonconsumptive effects of predators drive aquatic ecosystem function
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Plant Biomass data from: Bottom-up Herbivore-Plant Feedbacks Trump Trophic Cascades in a Wolf-Elk-Grassland System
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Data from: Removal of an apex predator initiates a trophic cascade that extends from herbivores to vegetation and the soil nutrient pool
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Data from: Piscivore addition causes a trophic cascade within and across ecosystem boundaries
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Data from: Morphological drivers of trophic cascades
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Data from: The body-size dependence of trophic cascades
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Data from: Predator macroevolution drives trophic cascades and ecosystem functioning
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Data from: Cascading spatial and trophic impacts of oak decline on the soil food web
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Data from: Mammal-induced trophic cascades in invertebrate food webs are modulated by grazing intensity in subalpine grassland
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Data from: Subsidy type and quality determine direction and strength of trophic cascades in arthropod food web in agro‐ecosystems
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Trophic cascade in a marine protected area
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Intraspecific difference among herbivore lineages and their host-plant specialization drive the strength of trophic cascades
<p>Dataset from the publication Intraspecific difference among herbivore lineages and their host-plant specialization drive the strength of trophic cascades</p>
Data from: Predator personality structures prey communities and trophic cascades
Intraspecific variation is central to our understanding of evolution and population ecology, yet its consequences for community ecology are poorly understood. Animal personality—consistent individual differences in suites of behaviors – may be particularly important for trophic dynamics, where predator personality can determine activity rates and patterns of attack. We used mesocosms with aquatic food webs in which the top predator (dragonfly nymphs) varied in activity and subsequent attack rates on zooplankton, and tested the effects of predator personality. We found support for four hypotheses: 1) active predators disproportionately reduce the abundance of prey, 2) active predators select for predator-resistant prey species, 3) active predators strengthen trophic cascades (increase phytoplankton abundance), and 4) active predators are more likely to cannibalize one another, weakening all other trends when at high densities. These results suggest that intraspecific variation in predator personality is an important determinant of prey abundance, community composition, and trophic cascades.
Data from: A cross-scale trophic cascade from large predatory fish to algae in coastal ecosystems
Trophic cascades occur in many ecosystems, but the factors regulating them are still elusive. We suggest that an overlooked factor is that trophic interactions (TIs) are often scale-dependent and possibly interact across spatial scales. To explore the role of spatial scale for trophic cascades, and particularly the occurrence of cross-scale interactions (CSIs), we collected and analysed food-web data from 139 stations across 32 bays in the Baltic Sea. We found evidence of a four-level trophic cascade linking TIs across two spatial scales: at bay scale, piscivores (perch and pike) controlled mesopredators (three-spined stickleback), which in turn negatively affected epifaunal grazers. At station scale (within bays), grazers on average suppressed epiphytic algae, and indirectly benefitted habitat-forming vegetation. Moreover, the direction and strength of the grazer–algae relationship at station scale depended on the piscivore biomass at bay scale, indicating a cross-scale interaction effect, potentially caused by a shift in grazer assemblage composition. In summary, the trophic cascade from piscivores to algae appears to involve TIs that occur at, but also interact across, different spatial scales. Considering scale-dependence in general, and CSIs in particular, could therefore enhance our understanding of trophic cascades.
Data from: Non-consumptive effects of a top-predator decrease the strength of the trophic cascade in a four-level terrestrial food web
The fear of predators can strongly impact food web dynamics and ecosystem functioning through effects on herbivores morphology, physiology or behaviour. While non-consumptive predator effects have been mostly studied in three-level food chains, we lack evidence for the propagation of non-consumptive indirect effects of apex predators in four level food-webs, notably in terrestrial ecosystems. In experimental mesocosms, we manipulated a four-level food chain including top-predator cues (snakes), mesopredators (lizards), herbivores (crickets), and primary producers (plants). The strength of the trophic cascade induced by mesopredators through the consumption of herbivores decreased in the presence of top-predator cues. Specifically, primary production was higher in mesocosms where mesopredators were present relative to mesocosms with herbivores only, and this difference was reduced in presence of top-predator cues, probably through a trait-mediated effect on lizard foraging. Our study demonstrates that non-consumptive effects of predation risk can cascade down to affect both herbivores and plants in a four-level terrestrial food chain and emphasises the need to quantify the importance of such indirect effects in natural communities.
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.