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93 results for “herbivore community”
Functional traits—not nativeness—shape the effects of large mammalian herbivores on plant communities
<p>Large mammalian herbivores (megafauna) have experienced extinctions and declines since prehistory. Introduced megafauna have partly counteracted these losses yet are thought to have unusually negative effects compared to native megafauna. Using a meta-analysis of 3,995 plot-scale plant abundance and diversity responses from 221 studies, we found no evidence that megafauna impacts were shaped by nativeness, 'invasiveness', 'feralness', coevolutionary history, or functional and phylogenetic novelty. Nor was there evidence that introduced megafauna facilitate introduced plants more than native megafauna. Instead, we found strong evidence that functional traits shaped megafauna impacts, with larger-bodied and bulk-feeding megafauna promoting plant diversity. Our work suggests that trait-based ecology provides better insight into interactions between megafauna and plants than concepts of nativeness.</p>
How nitrogen and phosphorus supply to nutrient-limited autotroph communities affects herbivore growth: testing stoichiometric and co-limitation theory across trophic levels
<p><span>Primary producer communities are often growth-limited by essential nutrients such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). The magnitude of </span><span>limitation and whether N, P, or both elements are limiting autotroph </span><span>growth depends on the supply and ratios of these essential nutrients. </span><span>Previous studies identified single, serial or co-limitation as predominant </span><span>limitation outcomes in autotroph communities by factorial nutrient </span><span>additions. Little is known about potential consequences of such scenarios </span><span>for herbivores and whether their growth is primarily affected by changes </span><span>in autotroph quantity or nutritional quality. We grew a community of </span><span>phytoplankton species differing in various food quality aspects in </span><span>experimental microcosms at varying N and P concentrations resulting in </span><span>three different N:P ratios. At carrying capacity, N, P, both nutrients or </span><span>none were added to reveal which nutrients were limiting. The nutrient supplied </span><span>communities were fed to the generalist herbivorous rotifer </span><span>Brachionus calyciflorus to investigate how changing phytoplankton </span><span>biomass and community composition affect herbivore abundance. We </span><span>found phytoplankton being growth-limited either by N alone (single </span><span>limitation) or serially, i.e. primarily by N and secondarily by P, altering </span><span>available food quantity for rotifers. Rotifer growth showed a different </span><span>response pattern compared to phytoplankton, suggesting that apart from </span><span>food quantity food quality aspects played a substantial role in the </span><span>transfer from primary to secondary production. The combined addition of </span><span>N and P to phytoplankton had generally a positive effect on herbivore </span><span>growth, whereas adding non-limiting nutrients had a rather detrimental </span><span>effect probably due to stoichiometrically imbalanced food in terms of </span><span>nutrient excess. Our experiment shows that adding various nutrients to </span><span>primary producer communities will not always lead to increased </span><span>autotroph and herbivore growth, and that differences between autotroph </span><span>and herbivore responses under co-limiting conditions can be partly well </span><span>explained by concepts of ecological stoichiometry theory.</span></p>
Functional traits—not nativeness—shape the effects of large mammalian herbivores on plant communities
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How nitrogen and phosphorus supply to nutrient-limited autotroph communities affects herbivore growth: testing stoichiometric and co-limitation theory across trophic levels
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Data from: Plant community-specific greening patterns predict population size increases in a temperate herbivore
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Local thermal extremes shape the nature of herbivore plasticity that controls plant communities
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Climate seasonality drives ant-plant-herbivore interactions via plant phenology in an extrafloral nectary-bearing plant community
<ol> <li>Interactions between ants and plants bearing extrafloral nectaries (EFNs) are among the most common mutualisms in Neotropical regions. Plants secrete extrafloral nectar, a carbohydrate-rich food that attracts ants, which in return protect plants against herbivores. This ant-plant mutualism is subjected to temporal variation, in which abiotic factors can drive the establishment and frequency of such mutualistic interaction. However, studies investigating how abiotic factors (e.g., climate) directly and indirectly influence ant-plant-herbivore interactions are incipient.</li> <li>In this study, we investigated direct and indirect (via plant phenology) effects of temperature and rainfall on ant-plant-herbivore interactions. To address these goals, we estimated six plant phenophases (newly flushed leaves, fully-expanded leaves, deciduousness, floral buds, flowers, and fruits) monthly, the activity of EFNs and abundance of ants and herbivores in 18 EFN-bearing plant species growing in a markedly seasonal region (the Brazilian Cerrado) during a complete growing season.</li> <li>Our results showed that (i) there were marked seasonal patterns in all plant phenophases, EFN activity, and the abundance of ants and herbivores; (ii) the peak of EFN activity and ant and herbivore abundance simultaneously occurred at the beginning of the rainy season, when new leaves flushed; and (iii) rainfall directly and indirectly (via changes in theproduction of new leaves) influenced EFN activity and this in turn provoked changes in ant abundance (but not on herbivores).</li> <li> <i>Synthesis</i>: Overall, our results build toward a better understanding of how climate drives seasonal patterns in ant-plant-herbivore interactions, explicitly considering plant phenology over time.</li> </ol>
Changes in arthropod community but not plant quality benefit a specialist herbivore on plants under reduced water availability
<p>Plants growing under reduced water availability can affect insect herbivores differently, in some instances benefitting them. However, the forces mediating these positive impacts remain mostly unclear. To identify how water availability impacts plant quality and multitrophic interactions, we conducted manipulative field studies with two populations of the specialist herbivore <i>Pieris rapae</i>, and its host plant, <i>Rorippa indica</i>. We found that <i>P. rapae </i>larvae experienced higher survival on <i>R. indica</i> growing under low water availability compared with plants grown under high water availability. Higher survival of eggs and larvae was related to the reduced abundance of other herbivores and natural enemies. Water availability had differential impacts on other members of the herbivore community by altering plant quality. Low water availability decreased the quality of <i>R. indica</i> to most herbivores, as indicated by reduced abundance in the field and decreased relative growth rate in laboratory feeding assays. In contrast, <i>P. rapae </i>larval performance was not affected by sympatric <i>R. indica </i>grown under different water availability. These results indicate that local <i>P. rapae</i> populations possess physiological adaptations to overcome fluctuations in host quality. Our findings illustrate that reduced water availability is beneficial to a specialist herbivore but detrimental to most other herbivores. Our work highlights the complex effects of the arthropod communities associated with plants in determining the impacts of water availability on insect herbivores.</p>
Data from: Endemism in Wyoming plant and insect herbivore communities during the early Eocene hothouse
The warm, equable, and ice-free early Eocene Epoch permits investigation of ecosystem function and macro-ecological patterns during a very different climate regime than exists today. It also provides insight into what the future may entail, as anthropogenic CO2 release drives Earth towards a comparable hothouse condition. Studying plant-insect herbivore food webs during hothouse intervals is warranted because these account for the majority of non-microbial terrestrial biodiversity. Here, we report new plant and insect herbivore damage census data from two floodplain sites in the Wind River Basin of central Wyoming, one in the Aycross Formation (50-48.25 Ma) at the basin edge (WRE) and the second in the Wind River Formation in the interior of the basin (WRI). The WRI site is in stratigraphic proximity to a volcanic ash that is newly dated to 52.416 ± 0.016/0.028/0.063 (2σ). We compare the Wind River Basin assemblages to published data from a 52.65 Ma floodplain flora in the neighboring Bighorn Basin (BH) and find that only 5.6% of plant taxa occur at all three sites and approximately 10% occur in both basins. The dissimilar floras support distinct suites of insect herbivores, as recorded by leaf damage. The relatively low diversity BH flora has the highest diversity of insect damage, contrary to hypotheses that insect herbivore diversity tracks floral diversity. The distinctiveness of the WRE flora is likely due to its younger age and cooler reconstructed paleotemperature, but these factors are nearly identical for the WRI and BH floras. Site-specific microenvironmental factors that cannot be measured easily in deep time may account for these differences. Alternatively, the Owl Creek Mountains between the two basins may have provided a formidable barrier to the thermophilic organisms that inhabited the basin interiors, supporting Janzen's hypothesis that mountain passes appear higher in tropical environments.
Data from: navigating uncertainty: managing herbivore communities enhances savanna ecosystem resilience under climate change
<p>Savannas are characterized by water scarcity and degradation, making them highly vulnerable to increased uncertainties in water availability resulting from climate change. This poses a significant threat to ecosystem services and rural livelihoods that depend on them. In addition, the lack of consensus among climate models on precipitation change makes it difficult for land managers to plan for the future. Therefore, savanna rangeland management needs to develop strategies that can sustain savanna resilience and avoid tipping points under an uncertain future climate. Our study aims to analyze the impacts of climate change and rangeland management on degradation in savanna ecosystems of southern Africa, providing insights for the management of semi-arid savannas under uncertain conditions worldwide. To achieve this, we simulated the effects of projected changes in temperature and precipitation, as predicted by ten global climate models, on water resources and vegetation (cover, functional diversity, tipping points (transition from grass-dominated to shrub-dominated vegetation)). We simulated three different rangeland management options (herbivore community dominated by grazers, by browser and by mixed-feeders), each with low and high animal densities using the ecohydrological model EcoHyD. Our results identified intensive grazing as the primary contributor to the increased risk of degradation in response to changing climatic conditions across all climate change scenarios. This degradation encompassed a reduction in available water for plant growth within the context of predicted climate change. It also entails a decline in the overall vegetation cover, the loss of functionally important plant species, and the inefficient utilization of available water resources, leading to earlier tipping points. Our findings underscore that in the face of climate uncertainty, farmers' most effective strategy for securing their livelihoods and ecosystem stability is to integrate browsers and apply management of mixed herbivore communities. This management approach not only significantly delays or averts tipping points but also maintained greater plant functional diversity, fostering a more robust and resilient ecosystem that acts as a vital buffer against adverse climatic conditions.</p>
Environmental context shapes the relationship between grass consumption and body size in African herbivore communities
<p>Though herbivore grass dependence has been shown to increase with body size across herbivore species, it is unclear whether this relationship holds at the community level. Here we evaluate whether grass consumption scales positively with body size within African large mammalian herbivore communities and how this relationship varies with environmental context. We used stable carbon isotope and community occurrence data to investigate how grass dependence scales with body size within 23 savanna herbivore communities throughout eastern and central Africa. We found that dietary grass fraction increased with body size for the majority of herbivore communities considered, especially when complete community data were available. However, the slope of this relationship varied, and rainfall seasonality and elephant presence were key drivers of the variation—grass dependence increased less strongly with body size where rainfall was more seasonal and where elephants were present. We found also that the dependence of the herbivore community as a whole on grass peaked at intermediate woody cover. Intraspecific diet variation contributed to these community-level patterns: common hippopotamus (<em>Hippopotamus amphibius</em>) and giraffe (<em>Giraffa camelopardalis</em>) ate less grass where rainfall was more seasonal, whereas Cape buffalo (<em>Syncerus caffer</em>) and savanna elephant (<em>Loxodonta africana</em>)<strong> </strong>grass consumption were parabolically related to woody cover. Our results indicate that general rules appear to govern herbivore community assembly, though some aspects of herbivore foraging behavior depend upon local environmental context.</p>
Data from: Foliar herbivory creates subtle soil legacy effects that alter future herbivores via changes in plant community biomass allocation
<p>Plants leave legacy effects in the soil they grow in, which can drive important vegetation processes, including productivity, community dynamics and species turnover. Plants at the same time also face continuous pressure posed by insect herbivores. Given the intimate interactions between plants and herbivores in ecosystems, plant identity and herbivory are likely to interactively shape soil legacies. However, the mechanisms that drive such legacy effects on future generations of plants and associated herbivores are little known.<br> In a greenhouse study, we exposed ten common grasses and non-leguminous forbs individually to insect herbivory by two closely related noctuid caterpillars, <i>Mamestra brassicae</i> and <i>Trichoplusia ni</i> (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) or kept them free of herbivores. We then used the soil legacies created by these plant individuals to grow a plant community composed of all ten plant species in each soil, and exposed these plant communities to <i>M. brassicae</i>. We measured conditioning plant biomass, soil respiration and chemistry of the conditioned soils, as well as individual plant, plant community and herbivore biomass responses.</p> <p>At the end of the conditioning phase, soils with herbivore legacies had higher soil respiration, but only significantly so for <i>M. brassicae</i>. Herbivore legacies had minimal impacts on community productivity. However, path models reveal that herbivore-induced soil legacies affected responding herbivores through changes in plant community shoot: root ratios. Soil legacy effect patterns differed between functional groups. We found strong plant species and functional group-specific effects on soil respiration parameters, which in turn led to plant community shifts in grass: forb biomass ratios. Soil legacies were negative for the growth of plants of the same functional group. </p> <p><strong>Synthesis:</strong><i> </i>We show that insect herbivory, plant species and their functional groups, all incur soil microbial responses that lead to subtle (herbivory) or strong (plants and their functional group) effects in response plant communities and associated polyphagous herbivores. Hence, even though typically ignored, our study emphasizes that legacies of previous insect herbivory in the soil can influence current soil-plant-insect community interactions.</p>
Chronic browsing by an introduced mammalian herbivore in a tropical island alters species composition and functional traits of forest understory plant communities
<p>Mammalian herbivores have large-scale impacts on vegetation, altering structure and species composition, especially in tropical grasslands and savannas. However, there is limited understanding of the potential impacts of mammalian herbivores in tropical wet forests, where they are typically less abundant. We investigated the effects of an introduced mammalian herbivore chital (<em>Axis axis</em>) on vegetation structure, composition and leaf functional traits of tropical evergreen forests of the Andaman Islands, India. Across seven islands, representing a gradient of herbivore densities, increasing chital presence was associated with decreased understory richness, understory density and adult tree richness, but was not related to adult tree density or size class distributions. We also found a significant decrease in community-level leaf palatability traits (specific leaf area decreased and leaf thickness increased) with increasing chital habitat use. This community-level shift in leaf trait values was better explained by intra-specific variation in leaf traits across islands rather than changes in species composition. In summary, we show persistent long-term impacts of an introduced mammalian herbivore on understory tropical tree communities although there is little impact on adult tree communities. Our results also show that functional traits of species can be altered in response to novel herbivory, even at herbivore densities where there are no detectable impacts on adult forest structure or composition. Such altered functional traits may potentially alter ecosystem functioning in these forests even without changes in vegetation structure.</p>
Ungulate herbivores promote beta diversity and drive stochastic plant community assembly by selective defoliation and trampling: From a four-year simulation experiment
<p>Ungulate herbivores shape grassland plant communities at multiple scales, ultimately affecting ecosystem function. However, ungulates have complex effects on grasslands, including defoliation, trampling, excreta return, and their interactions. Moreover, the effects of ungulate density on grasslands are regulated by these three mechanisms. Nevertheless, how these three mechanisms affect biodiversity at multiple scales and community assembly remains poorly understood.</p> <p>Here, we conducted a 4-year novel field experiment to disentangle the effects of defoliation, trampling, and excreta return by ungulates on plant community assembly in a temperate grassland in Inner Mongolia, China. This experiment set two different scenarios: moderate ungulate density (Moderate, characterised by selective defoliation and moderate trampling) and high ungulate density (Intense, characterised by non-selective defoliation and heavy trampling), including different combinations of defoliation, trampling, and excreta return in each scenario.</p> <p>We found that defoliation and trampling increased stochasticity in community assembly and promoted alpha and beta diversity under both scenarios. Specifically, defoliation promoted the coexistence of species with multiple resource acquisition strategies (higher functional trait diversity) by reducing interspecific competition; trampling tended to facilitate random species colonisation. Conversely, excreta return favoured grasses, promoting deterministic assembly and impacting species coexistence. Notably, selective defoliation in the moderate scenario led to a dominance of stochastic processes during community assembly, whereas non-selective defoliation still did not change the dominance of deterministic processes. Further, communities subject to selective defoliation were insensitive to changes in soil properties caused by trampling and excreta return, maintaining a high-level beta diversity and the stochastic of community assembly.</p> <p><em>Synthesis:</em></p> <p>Our study provides important insights into the mechanisms by which ungulate herbivores influence plant community assembly, suggesting that defoliation and trampling have the potential to drive stochastic processes, while excreta return plays the opposite role. Our study also suggests that selective foraging by ungulates acts as stronger stochastic forces during community assembly compared to non-selective defoliation. These results imply that considering ungulate feeding preferences and foraging behaviour in grassland management will help prevent biodiversity loss and biotic homogenisation.</p>
PHENOLOGICAL INDICATORS OF RESOURCES OFFERED TO LEAF HERBIVORES IN RESTINGA COMMUNITIES
<p>Dataset from the second chapter of the doctoral thesis entitled “HERBIVORY PATTERNS, ANTI-HERBIVORY DEFENSES AND INSECT GUILD OCCURRENCE IN ATLANTIC FOREST COMMUNITIES.” </p>
Intra-specific variation in plant associated herbivore communities is phylogenetically structured in Brassicaceae
<p>As a result of co-evolution between plants and herbivores, related plants often interact with similar herbivore communities. Variation in plant-herbivore interactions is determined by variation in underlying functional traits and by ecological and stochastic processes. Hence, typically only a subset of possible interactions is realized on individual plants. We show that insect herbivore communities assembling on individual plants are structured by plant phylogeny among twelve species in two phylogenetic lineages of Brassicaceae. This community sorting to plant phylogeny was retained when splitting the community according to herbivore feeding guilds. Relative abundance of herbivores as well as the size of the community structured community dissimilarity among plant species. Importantly, the amount of intra-specific variation in realized plant-herbivore interactions is also phylogenetically structured. We argue that variability in realized interactions that is not directly structured by plant traits is ecologically relevant and must be considered in the evolution of plant defences.</p>
Data for: Plant and herbivorous insect communities respond in complex ways to rainfall manipulation in an oak savanna grassland
<p>Changes in precipitation due to climate change will have consequences for plant and herbivorous insect communities alike. Multiple hypotheses explain how changes in plant diversity and productivity can lead to changes in herbivore community composition. Yet as rainfall patterns change, the bottom-up effects on the relationships between plant and herbivore communities are less well understood. Using a long-term rainfall manipulation experiment in a remnant patch of Garry oak (<em>Quercus garryana</em>) savanna, we examined how plant diversity and productivity have responded to variation in soil moisture over six years. This highly endangered ecosystem is predicted to experience significantly wetter springs and drier summers by 2080. We also investigated plant-mediated, indirect effects of manipulated rainfall on herbivore diversity and abundance, drawing on multiple hypotheses describing the relationships between plant and herbivore communities. For example, the more individuals hypothesis predicts that increased plant productivity results in increased herbivore abundance which in turn results in increased herbivore diversity. We found that plant productivity was influenced by soil moisture, but the direction and magnitude of the response varied across years, and no support for plant diversity influencing productivity. We also found that the cover and productivity of grasses increased significantly with increasing precipitation. In addition to a significant direct effect on herbivore diversity, soil moisture had a significant indirect negative effect on herbivore abundance, via the negative effect of plant productivity on abundance, contradicting the more individuals hypothesis.</p> <p>Synthesis: Our results highlight that not only can drought result in significant reductions in plant productivity in this threatened ecosystem, but that these changes will also result in increases in herbivore abundance. In contrast, where soil moisture is higher, grasses will become more dominant resulting in decreased abundance. Ultimately, predicting how this system responds to changes in precipitation will depend on the ability to predict whether growing season soil moisture will be consistently drier or wetter in the future, a significant challenge. Going forward, investigating how variation in precipitation due to climate change affects the links between trophic levels, including how herbivores affect plant communities, remains critical for understanding ecosystem processes and stability.</p>
Changes in plant community assembly from patchy degradation of grasslands and grazing by different-sized herbivores
<p>Grassland degradation caused by increases in livestock grazing threatens a variety of ecosystem services. Understanding changes in plant community assembly during the process of grassland degradation in the presence of grazing is important to help restore degraded grasslands worldwide but has received little attention thus far. The grassland degradation process is typified by heterogeneous degradation, i.e., gradual formation of degraded patches (hereafter "patchy degradation"). Here, we experimentally examined the effects of herbivore grazing and patchy degradation on plant community assembly using nine pairs of non-degraded (intact) and patch-degraded (fragmented) grasslands subject to grazing by different-sized herbivores (i.e., NG, no grazing; SG, sheep grazing; CG, cattle grazing) over four years. Using a null-model approach, we estimated the relative magnitude of deterministic processes of community assembly by comparing the observed and expected β-diversity. We found that in the absence of herbivore grazing, deterministic processes played a greater role in community assembly, regardless of whether patchy degradation had occurred. However, the deterministic processes resulted in plant communities being more spatially similar in non-degraded grasslands while being more dissimilar in patchy degraded grasslands. Compared with non-degraded grasslands, species with strong competitive abilities (i.e., Leymus chinensis) were less dominant in patchy degraded grasslands, indicating relaxed competition and a reduced role of species interactions over plant communities. Instead, patchy degradation added the role of environmental variables over plant communities. Sheep grazing consistently promoted more stochastic plant community assembly in both non-degraded and patch-degraded grasslands, while cattle grazing promoted more stochastic plant community assembly only in the non-degraded state, having no effect in the patch-degraded state. Our study offers important insights into changes in plant community assembly during ongoing patch-degradation of grasslands, indicating the role of increased environmental filtering of soil and reduced species interactions in driving plant community dynamics with increasing grassland patchy degradation. We also uncovered an herbivore species-specific effect on plant community assembly during the process of grassland degradation, which will better inform and improve future grassland restoration planning efforts.</p>
Tropicalization shifts herbivore pressure from seagrass to rocky reef communities
<p>Climate-driven species redistributions are reshuffling the composition of marine ecosystems. How these changes alter ecosystem functions, however, remains poorly understood. Here we examine how the impacts of herbivory change across a gradient of tropicalization in the Mediterranean Sea, which includes a steep climatic gradient and marked changes in plant nutritional quality and fish herbivore composition. We quantified individual feeding rates and behaviour of 755 fishes of the native <em>Sarpa salpa</em>, and non-native <em>Siganus rivulatus</em> and <em>Siganus luridus</em>. We measured herbivore and benthic assemblage composition across 20 sites along the gradient, spanning 30º of longitude and 8º of latitude. We coupled patterns in behaviour and composition with temperature measurements and nutrient concentrations to assess changes in herbivory under tropicalization. We found a transition in ecological impacts by fish herbivory across the Mediterranean from a predominance of seagrass herbivory in the west to a dominance of macroalgal herbivory in the east. Underlying this shift were changes in both individual feeding behaviour (i.e., food choice) and fish assemblage composition. The shift in feeding selectivity was consistent among temperate and warm-affiliated herbivores. Our findings suggest herbivory can contribute to the increased vulnerability of seaweed communities and reduced vulnerability of seagrass meadows in tropicalized ecosystems. </p>
Experimental manipulation of scavenger and herbivore functional role and their effects on plant communities following mass mortality events
<p>We designed an experiment to measure the relative importance of bottom-up forces (nutrient addition) and top-down forces (impairment of obligate scavenger and herbivore functional roles) generated by experimental carrion deployment to simulate mass mortality events on the local plant community. In our experimental plots, we measured changes in plant functional groups before and for three years after experimental carrion deployment. Additionally, we monitored cherrybark oak (<em>Quercus pagoda</em>) seedlings' growth and survival three years after being transplanted in the experimental plots. </p>
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