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451 results for “Food webs”
Food Web of Sarracenia Purpurea in United States and Canada 1999-2011
How food webs are structured and how their structure and dynamics vary through time and space is a central focus of research in community ecology. We documented structural variation in the aquatic food web inhabiting pitcher-shaped leaves of the carnivorous pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea across the geographic range of the plant (from Florida north to Labrador and west to British Columbia); examined temporal variation in this food web with detailed experiments in Massachusetts and Vermont; experimentally manipulated top-down and bottom-up processes in this food web in Massachusetts; and developed a dynamic simulation model of this food web that incorporates metacommunity dynamics.
Modeling Foundation Species in Food Webs
Foundation species are basal species that play an important role in determining community composition by physically structuring ecosystems and modulating ecosystem processes. Foundation species largely operate via non-trophic interactions, presenting a challenge to incorporating them into food-web models. Here, we used non-linear, bioenergetic predator-prey models to explore the role of foundation species and their non-trophic effects. We explored four types of models in which the foundation species reduced the metabolic rates of species in a specific trophic position. We examined the outcomes of each of these models for six metabolic rate “treatments” in which the foundation species altered the metabolic rates of associated species by one-tenth to ten times their allometric baseline metabolic rates. For each model simulation, we looked at how foundation species influenced food-web structure during community assembly and the subsequent change in food-web structure when the foundation species was removed. When a foundation species lowered the metabolic rate of only basal species the resultant webs were complex, species-rich, and robust to foundation species removals. On the other hand, when a foundation species lowered the metabolic rate of only consumer species, all species, or no species the resultant webs were species poor and the subsequent removal of the foundation species webs resulted in the further loss of species and complexity. This suggests that in nature we should look for foundation species to predominantly facilitate basal species.
Food Web Isotope Study at North Temperate Lakes LTER 2004 - 2010
Stable isotope ratios (d13C and d15N) were measured in archived scale samples of seven fish species captured in Sparkling Lake over the period 1981 through 2009. Stable isotopes of benthic and pelagic food web end members (macroinvertebrates and zooplankton, respectively) were also measured. Zooplankton were from samples taken in Sparkling Lake, Allequash Lake, and Big Muskellunge Lake. Zoobenthos were from samples taken in Sparkling Lake. Isotope Study abstract paragraph 2 Number of sites: 3
Cascade Project at North Temperate Lakes LTER High Frequency Sonde Data from Food Web Resilience Experiment 2008 - 2011
High-frequency sonde data collected from the surface waters of two lakes in Upper Peninsula of Michigan during the summers of 2008-2011. The food web of Peter Lake was slowly transformed by gradual additions of Largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) while Paul Lake was an unmanipulated reference. Sonde data were used to calculate resilience indicators to evaluate the stability of the food web and to calculate ecosystem metabolism.
Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data from Arctic coastscapes associated with coastal invertebrate and fish food webs, 1999-2022
Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data are commonly used to elucidate food web structure and partition food source importance to consumers. Here, stable isotope data were gathered from across the coastal Arctic to assess how differences in coastal type (i.e., coastscape) and longitudinal region differ across the Arctic. Data were collected between 1999-2022.
Impacts of invasive species on food web energy pathways and quality, St. Lawrence River, 2018-2021.
This dataset contains field measurements collected between 2018 and 2021 from three fluvial lakes in the Upper St. Lawrence River (Canada), including both invaded systems (with dreissenid mussels and round goby) and uninvaded reference sites. Data include georeferenced sampling information (site, lake, latitude, longitude, month, year), water chemistry (total phosphorus, µg/L; conductivity, µS/cm), and habitat descriptors (substrate). Biological records encompass seston, macroinvertebrates, and fish. Fish data comprise species identity, sex, total length (mm), weight (g), relative weight index (Wr), and detailed fatty acid composition expressed as relative proportions (%) and concentrations (µg/mg), including essential LC-PUFAs (EPA, DHA), n-3 and n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Stable isotope data are provided, including carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) ratios, C:N ratios, and isotopic baselines from pelagic (δ13Cpel, δ15Npel) and benthic (δ13Cben, δ15Nben) sources. Derived variables, such as pelagic diet proportion and trophic position, were calculated using the two-source mixing model described by Post (2002) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1890/0012-9658(2002)083[0703:USITET]2.0.CO;2). These data provide a comprehensive resource for examining food web structure, energy pathways, and the ecological impacts of invasive species in large river ecosystems.
A unified dataset of co-located sewage pollution, periphyton, and benthic macroinvertebrate community and food web structure from Lake Baikal (Siberia)
Sewage released from lakeside development can introduce nutrients and micropollutants that can restructure aquatic ecosystems. Lake Baikal, the world's most ancient, biodiverse, and voluminous lake, has been experiencing localized sewage pollution from lakeside settlements. Increasing filamentous algal abundance suggests benthic communities are responding to this localized pollution. We surveyed 40-km of Lake Baikal's southwestern shoreline 19-23 August 2015 for sewage indicators, including pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and microplastics with co-located periphyton, macroinvertebrate, stable isotope, and fatty acid sampling. Unique identifiers corresponding to sampling locations are retained throughout all data files to facilitate interoperability among the dataset's 150+ variables. The data are structured in a tidy format (a tabular arrangement familiar to limnologists) to encourage future reuse. For Lake Baikal studies, these data can support continued monitoring and research efforts. For global studies of lakes, these data can help characterize sewage prevalence and ecological consequences of anthropogenic disturbance across spatial scales.
Data in: Reduced predation and energy flux in soil food webs by introduced tree species
<p>The introduction of non-native tree species has become a global concern and may disruptnative communities and related ecosystem functions. Soil food webs regulate organic matter decomposition and nutrient cycling in forests with their feeding activities, butevaluating consequences of tree species introduction on soil invertebrates is challengingdue to the complex trophic structure and wide range in body size of soil invertebrates. Here, we employed an energetic food web approach, and estimated the energy flux in soil food webs using a four-node model including soil meso- and macrofauna decomposers and predators. We examined pure and mixed stands of native European beech (<em>Fagus sylvatica</em>), introduced Douglas fir (<em>Pseudotsuga menziesii</em>) and native range-expanding Norway spruce (<em>Picea abies</em>) across site conditions. Compared to native forests, introduced tree species reduced total mass of macrofauna predators by 92% at sandy sites but not that of decomposers, suggesting trophic downgrading in soil food webs by Douglas fir. The energy flux in mixed forests was intermediate between respective monocultures, suggesting that tree mixtures mitigate potential negative impacts of introduced tree species on food web functioning. Across size classes, soil macrofauna responded more sensitively to changes in environmental conditions than soil mesofauna. Despite the lower total mass, the energy flux through mesofauna outweighed that through macrofauna when consideringenergy loss to predators, highlighting the importance of mesofauna for decomposition processes in forest soil food webs. Additionally, total energy flux positively correlated with species richness, pointing to the significance of soil biodiversity for trophic functionality. Overall, the study emphasizes the critical role of tree species composition, site conditionsand soil biodiversity in driving energy flux through soil food webs and maintaining forest ecosystem functions.</p>
Data from "Evaluating top-down, bottom-up, and environmental drivers of pelagic food web dynamics along an estuarine gradient"
Synthesized fish, benthic invertebrate, and water quality dataset used for analysis in: Rogers, T., S. Bashevkin, C. Burdi, D. Colombano, P. Dudley, B. Mahardja, L. Mitchell, S. Perry, and P. Saffarinia. 2022. Evaluating top-down, bottom-up, and environmental drivers of pelagic food web dynamics along an estuarine gradient. preprint, EcoEvoRxiv. https://doi.org/10.32942/X2MK5Z
Alligator pond food-web sampling in Shark River Slough and Taylor Slough, Everglades National Park, Florida, USA, 2018–2019
These datasets were used to investigate if American Alligators engineer differences in nutrient availability and changes to community structure by their creation of “alligator ponds” compared to the surrounding phosphorus (P)-limited oligotrophic marsh in the Everglades. We used a halo sampling design of three distinct habitats extending outward from ten active alligator ponds across a hydrological gradient. We performed nutrient analysis on basal food-web resources and quantitative community analyses, and stoichiometric analyses on plants and animals. These data underly the work in Strickland et al. (2023). An apex predator engineers wetland food-web heterogeneity through nutrient enrichment and habitat modification. Journal of Animal Ecology.
Stomach contents and stable isotopes from the aquatic food web in Everglades National Park, Florida, USA, 2018-2019
Stable isotope samples were collected among habitats and between seasons at multiple sites in both Shark River Slough and Taylor Slough of Everglades National Park to represent as much of the aquatic food web as possible. Stomach contents were also recorded for many of the collected vertebrate samples. Sampling occurred between October 2018 and April 2019. These data are a follow up study to the FCE1263 data package (https://portal.edirepository.org/nis/mapbrowse?scope=knb-lter-fce&identifier=1263) following the invasion of several fishes, most notably the African Jewelfish (Rubricatochromis letourneuxi), although there are some differences in habitats sampled and overall spatial coverage. R code for analyses associated with these data are available at https://github.com/pjflood/diet_and_pond_enrichment. Data collection is complete.
Experimental Understory Food Web data in the El Verde area of the Luquillo Experimental Forest
These data include date, treatment, block number, number of coquies, number of anoles, number of insects collected on two sticky traps, number of insects counted on 4 Piper glabrescens and 4 Manilkara bidentata seedlings, percent herbivory on the aforementioned plants and number of spiders. All these measurements were taken within exclosures for closed controls, anole exclusions, coqui exclusions and total exclusions. Open controls were sampled from an area of similar dimension not enclosed in an exclosure. Support for this work was provided by grants BSR-8811902, DEB-9411973, DEB-9705814 , DEB-0080538, DEB-0218039 , DEB-0620910 , DEB-1239764, DEB-1546686, and DEB-1831952 from the National Science Foundation to the University of Puerto Rico as part of the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Program. Additional support provided by the University of Puerto Rico and the International Institute of Tropical Forestry, USDA Forest Service.
PIE LTER, stable isotope chemistry (carbon, nitrogen and sulfur) for food web analysis of functional groups in the Plum Island Sound Estuary, Massachusetts.
Stable isotopes of primary producers will be compared to stable isotopes of functional groups of organisms at primarily three sites within the estuary that have different dominant sources of organic matter. The three sites are: Lower (IBYC, SO-3, mouth of Plum Island Sound, 2-3 km upstream of the mouth of the estuary), Middle (OTL, PR-10.1, upper Sound, lower Parker, 8-11 km upstream of the mouth of the estuary) and Upper (P2, PR-21.9, upper Parker, above Middle Rd Bridge (22 km upstream of the mouth of the estuary). The Lower site is dominated by marine phytoplankton, the Middle site is dominated by a mixture of salt marsh and phytoplankton and the Upper site is dominated by oligohaline phytoplankton and fresh marsh. Ten functional groups will be sampled at each site (Surface sediment, benthic diatoms, Nereis, mummichog, ribbed mussels, POM, blue mussels, pelagic copepods (Acartia), silversides and soft shell clams (Mya). Marsh, benthic algae and phytoplankton inputs or benthic vs. pelagic pathways will be evident in the isotopic signals of these functional groups. Samples will be collected between the middle and end of August to reflect a growing season using recently produced OM. Samples of 15 – 20 individuals will be pooled for analysis. Some silverside samplings will have 3 different pooled samples for determination of variance. Often times the same species are not collected at each site due to habitat differences (salinity/discharge) so additional species are collected to try to accomplish task of getting functional groups collected.
Data supporting: Combined stress of an insecticide and heatwaves or elevated temperature induce community and food web effects in a Mediterranean freshwater ecosystem
<p>Data used to obtain the results of the research paper entitled: "Combined stress of an insecticide and heatwaves or elevated temperature induce community and food web effects in a Mediterranean freshwater ecosystem", published in the journal "Water Research". The data derives from an outdoor (meso-) cosm experiment in Spain (Imdea Water, Alcala de Henares) in which the transportable temperature and heatwave control device (TENTACLE) was used to investigate the multiple stressors effects of two different climate change scenarios related to temperature (i.e., elevated temperature and reoccurring heatwaves) in combination with the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid.</p>
Direct and indirect effects of climate and land use change on food webs in lakes and streams
<p>Here, we provide the data and code necessary to reproduce the workflow and analysis in: Barbosa and Siqueira. Direct and indirect effects of climate and land use change on food webs in lakes and streams. A preprint is available at https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.04.18.488700</p> <p>We compiled multicontinental data to investigate how climate and land use change are related to the structure of freshwater food webs, considering the inherent differences in lentic and lotic ecosystems. We analyzed the direct and indirect relationships between land use intensity, and temperature and precipitation changes, and food webs using multi-group structural equation modeling. Freshwater food webs were obtained from three sources: the Mangal interaction database, using the rmangal package in R, the GlobAl databasE of traits and food Web Architecture (GATEWAY) version 1.0, and the Interaction Web Data Base (IWDB). We also included food webs acquired from a search in the Web of Science Core Collection. Land use data was compiled from the global ESA CCI database, an annually generated land cover product at 300 m resolution for the period 1992 – 2015. Climate data was compiled from the TerraClimate database, a monthly generated product for climate and climatic water balance for global terrestrial surfaces at ~ 4 km for the period 1958 – 2015. </p>
University of Michigan Biological Station cumulative food web data for terrestrial habitats, 1909-2023.
Here, we present species and interaction lists for a food web of the aboveground terrestrial habitats at the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS). The site is composed predominantly of dry-mesic, northern hardwood forests with patches of wooded wetlands (hardwood conifer swamp). Taxa were sourced from lists provided by UMBS, from resident biologists’ personal observations, museum specimens, online databases, historical censuses, and BioBlitz events. Only those that could be resolved to species-level or were genera with < 20 species in the Nearctic were included. We also excluded species that do not have a significant lifestage or feeding behavior in aboveground terrestrial habitats. Our focal taxonomic groups include vascular plants, arthropods, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians. The majority of arthropods are insects; non-insect arthropods were highly underrepresented in our lists. Interactions were sourced from online databases, naturalist observations, and field guides and accumulated into a “metaweb” of all potential interactions between local species. Interactions were checked by experts to plausibly occur in the aboveground terrestrial environments at UMBS, given species’ phenology, traits, and habitat usage. Interactions at any taxonomic level were included, so long as they were approved to potentially occur between all species by our experts. To study the effect of taxonomic resolution on food web structure, in this dataset, we retained records at coarser taxonomic groupings even if more highly resolved records were also approved. We included all direct interactions among species in our system with a bioenergetic flow (i.e., one species consuming another), differentiated by their focal resource. We broadly categorized the resources as animal tissues, either (1) live tissues and as prey, or (2) scavenged as carrion, carcasses, or other decaying animal remains, or as plant tissues, grouped as (3) leaves and stems, including grasses, exudates, et
Cothran, R. D., F. Radarian, and R. A. Relyea. 2011. Altering aquatic food webs with a global insecticide: Arthropod-amphibian links in mesocosms that simulate wetland communities. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 30:893-912.
Pesticides play a critical role in maximizing yields of economically important crops and minimizing the human health threats of disease-carrying pests, but they often have collateral effects on nontarget species. We used a mesocosm study to address how the most commonly used insecticide in the USA, malathion, applied at low, ecologically relevant concentrations (20 and 110 mg/L) affects species interactions in aquatic communities. Unlike many community ecotoxicology studies, our study assessed how malathion affects both consumptive and nonconsumptive effects of predators. We also considered how the vertical distribution of predator cues and malathion (caused by potential stratification) affects species interactions. We found no evidence for vertical stratification of malathion, a result suggesting that exposure to the pesticide was uniform throughout the water column. Malathion was lethal to some primary consumers (cladocerans) at both concentrations and to top predators (dragonflies) at the highest concentration (110 mg/L). These lethal effects initiated density-mediated indirect effects in both cases. Malathion also may have decreased dragonfly foraging efficiency, resulting in increased tadpole survival (trait-mediated indirect effect), which decreased the resources used by tadpoles (periphyton). Collectively, our results show that malathion alters species interactions. However, we suggest that the degree to which pesticides affect aquatic communities will depend strongly on the species composition of communities. Therefore, the community-level consequences of pesticide exposure are likely to vary across the ecological landscape.
Data from: Impacts of nutrient subsidies on salt marsh arthropod food webs: a latitudinal survey
Anthropogenic nutrient inputs into native ecosystems cause fluctuations in resources that normally limit plant growth, which has important consequences for associated foodwebs. Such inputs from agricultural and urban habitats into nearby natural systems are increasing globally and can be highly variable. Despite the global increase in anthropogenically-derived nutrient inputs into native ecosystems, the consequences of variation in subsidy amount on native plants and their associated foodwebs are poorly known. Salt marshes represent an ideal system to address the differential impacts of nutrient inputs on ecosystem and community dynamics because human development and other anthropogenic activities lead to recurrent introductions of nutrients into these natural systems. Previously, we have found in manipulative experiments that arthropod abundance increases in response to nutrient enrichment, with predators being the trophic group most strongly affected. We conducted a survey of Atlantic coastal Spartina marshes to test whether such local responses are indicative of responses at a landscape level. We examined the most abundant arthropod species associated with Spartina coastal marshes that receive variable amounts of anthropogenic nitrogen, and tested how this response varied across different arthropod functional groups (herbivores, epigeic feeders, and predators). Similar to what we found at a local scale, nutrient subsidies alter the trophic structure of the arthropod assemblage by changing the relative abundances of various feeding groups. Variable responses among predators to nitrogen density could be partly explained by diet breadth (e.g. generalists vs. specialists). Herbivores had a negative response to increasing plant nitrogen density; specialist predators tracked their herbivore prey and thus also responded negatively to nitrogen density. However, generalists were not negatively affected by nitrogen density and indeed some generalist predators responded positively to nitrogen density. Thus, the overall predator-to-herbivore ratio was also positively associated with nitrogen density. Our research helps us to understand how long-term nutrient enrichment of native ecosystems by human activities affects arthropod assemblages and foodweb dynamics.
Disentangling ecological and taphonomic signals in ancient food webs
<p>Analyses of ancient food webs reveal important paleoecological processes and responses to a range of perturbations throughout Earth's history, such as climate change. These responses can inform our forecasts of future biotic responses to similar perturbations. However, previous analyses of ancient food webs rarely accounted for key differences between modern and ancient community data, particularly selective loss of soft-bodied taxa during fossilization. To consider how fossilization impacts inferences of ancient community structure we (1) analyzed node-level attributes to identify correlations between ecological roles and fossilization potential and (2) applied selective information loss procedures to food web data for extant systems. We found that selective loss of soft-bodied organisms has predictable effects on the trophic structure of "artificially fossilized" food webs, because these organisms occupy unique, consistent food web positions. Fossilized food webs misleadingly appear less stable (i.e., more prone to trophic cascades), with less predation and an overrepresentation of generalist consumers. We also found that ecological differences between soft- and hard-bodied taxa—indicated by distinct positions in modern food webs—are recorded in an Early Eocene web, but not in Cambrian webs. This suggests that ecological differences between the groups have existed for ≥ 48 million years. Our results indicate that accounting for soft-bodied taxa is vital for accurate depictions of ancient food webs. However, the consistency of information loss trends across the analyzed food webs means it is possible to predict how the selective loss of soft-bodied taxa affects food web metrics, which can permit better modeling of ancient communities.</p>
Dataset for: Integrated trophic position as a proxy for food-web complexity
<div> <p>There are two distinct approaches to describing the distributions of biomass and species in food webs: one to consider them as discrete trophic levels (TLs); and the other to consider them as continuous trophic positions (TPs). Bridging the gap between these two perspectives presents a non-trivial challenge in integrating biodiversity and food-web structure.</p> <p>Food Network Unfolding (FNU) is a technique used to bridge this gap by partitioning the biomass of species into integer TLs to compute three complexity indices, namely vertical (<em>D</em><sub>V</sub>), horizontal (<em>D</em><sub>H</sub>), and range (<em>D</em><sub>R</sub>) diversity (<em>D</em> indices), through decomposition of Shannon's index <em>H'</em>. Using FNU, the food web (a network of species with unique TPs) is converted to a linear food chain (a biomass distribution at discrete TLs). This enables us to expect that the unfolded biomass within species decreases exponentially as the TL increases. Under this condition, the mean TL value in unfolded food chains is hypothesized to have an exponential relationship with the vertical diversity, <em>D</em><sub>V</sub>. To explore this, we implemented FNU and calculated <em>D</em> indices for food webs publicly available at EcoBase (<em>n</em> = 158) and calculated the integrated TP (iTP), defined as the biomass-weighted average TP of a given food web. The iTP corresponds to the mean TL in unfolded food chains and can be empirically measured through compound-specific isotope analysis of amino acids (CSIA-AA).</p> <p>Although our analysis is biased towards marine ecosystems, we revealed an exponential relationship between iTP and <em>D</em><sub>V</sub>, suggesting that iTP can serve as a measurable proxy for <em>D</em><sub>V</sub>. Furthermore, we found a positive correlation between the iTP observed in the total communities (total iTP) and the iTPs of partial communities consisting only of species with 2.0 ≤ TP < 3.0 (partial iTP; <em>r<sup>2</sup></em> = 0.48), suggesting that <em>D</em><sub>V</sub> can be predicted using partial iTP.</p> <p>Our findings suggest that the net effect of species diversity, excluding the effect of biomass (corresponding to <em>H'</em> − <em>D</em><sub>V</sub>), on food-web complexity can be revealed by combining CSIA-AA with biodiversity analysis (e.g., environmental DNA).</p> </div>
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These curated guides explain access requirements, typical timelines, costs, and reuse considerations for widely used research datasets.
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.