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13 results for “trophic linking”
Linking Precipitation and C3 - C4 Plant Production to Resource Dynamics in Higher Trophic Level Consumers: Lizard Data (2005-2006)
In many ecosystems, seasonal shifts in temperature and precipitation induce pulses of primary productivity that vary in phenology, abundance and nutritional quality. Â Variation in these resource pulses could strongly influence community composition and ecosystem function, because these pervasive bottom-up forces play a primary role in determining the biomass, life cycles and interactions of organisms across trophic levels. Â The focus of this research is to understand how consumers across trophic levels alter resource use and assimilation over seasonal and inter-annual timescales in response to climatically driven changes in pulses of primary productivity. We measured the carbon isotope ratios (d13C) of plant, arthropod, and lizard tissues in the northern Chihuahuan Desert to quantify the relative importance of primary production from plants using C3 and C4 photosynthesis for consumers. Â Summer monsoonal rains on the Sevilleta LTER in New Mexico support a pulse of C4 plant production that have tissue d13C values distinct from C3 plants. Â During a year when precipitation patterns were relatively normal, d13C measurements showed that consumers used and assimilated significantly more C4 derived carbon over the course of a summer; tracking the seasonal increase in abundance of C4 plants. Â In the following spring, after a failure in winter precipitation and the associated failure of spring C3 plant growth, consumers showed elevated assimilation of C4 derived carbon relative to a normal rainfall regime. These findings provide insight into how climate, pulsed resources and temporal trophic dynamics may interact to shape semi-arid grasslands such as the Chihuahuan Desert in the present and future.
Linking Precipitation and C3 - C4 Plant Production to Resource Dynamics in Higher Trophic Level Consumers: Insect Data (2005-2006)
In many ecosystems, seasonal shifts in temperature and precipitation induce pulses of primary productivity that vary in phenology, abundance and nutritional quality. Â Variation in these resource pulses could strongly influence community composition and ecosystem function, because these pervasive bottom-up forces play a primary role in determining the biomass, life cycles and interactions of organisms across trophic levels. Â The focus of this research is to understand how consumers across trophic levels alter resource use and assimilation over seasonal and inter-annual timescales in response to climatically driven changes in pulses of primary productivity. We measured the carbon isotope ratios (d13C) of plant, arthropod, and lizard tissues in the northern Chihuahuan Desert to quantify the relative importance of primary production from plants using C3 and C4 photosynthesis for consumers. Â Summer monsoonal rains on the Sevilleta LTER in New Mexico support a pulse of C4 plant production that have tissue d13C values distinct from C3 plants. Â During a year when precipitation patterns were relatively normal, d13C measurements showed that consumers used and assimilated significantly more C4 derived carbon over the course of a summer; tracking the seasonal increase in abundance of C4 plants. Â In the following spring, after a failure in winter precipitation and the associated failure of spring C3 plant growth, consumers showed elevated assimilation of C4 derived carbon relative to a normal rainfall regime. These findings provide insight into how climate, pulsed resources and temporal trophic dynamics may interact to shape semi-arid grasslands such as the Chihuahuan Desert in the present and future.
Data for the article entitled: Linking sexual size dimorphism to trophic niche partitioning in a generalist predator
<p>Sexual size dimorphism is a common phenomenon in mammals, and researchers have been trying to demonstrate the evolutionary causes leading to sexual dimorphism. Two main hypotheses emerged: (i) the sexual selection hypothesis and (ii) the sexual competition hypothesis (also called resource partitioning hypothesis). Here, we attempted to link sexual dimorphism in fishers (Pekania pennanti (Erxleben, 1777)) with their fall diet using stable isotope profiling and body and skull measurements. We used the carcasses of 39 fishers which were caught in eastern Québec during fall 2014 by volunteer trappers as well as several potential prey items ranging from small rodents to cervids. We expected minimal niche overlap between sexes, as males should be able to exploit different prey species than females. We also expected to observe an effect of age class (adults vs. juveniles) on trophic niche. As expected, we found great evidence of sexual dimorphism in both body mass and skull measurements: males were heavier and longer than females and had a larger zygomatic and intracanine width and a longer skull. While proportions of prey in diet according to sex and age did not vary greatly, we found some evidence of niche partitioning using Layman's metrics. Indeed, females tended to have a less diversified and more similar diet compared to one another, whereas males showed more diversified and contrasted diets. Despite our limited sample size, our findings provide partial support to the sexual competition hypothesis, as the difference in body and skull size based on sex could have evolved to lessen intraspecific competition in fishers.</p>
Apex predators can structure ecosystems through trophic cascades: linking the frugivorous behaviour and seed-dispersal patterns of mesocarnivores
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Data for the article entitled: Linking sexual size dimorphism to trophic niche partitioning in a generalist predator
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Data from: Intricate trophic links between threatened vertebrates confined to a small island in the Atlantic Ocean
Trophic networks in small isolated islands are in a fragile balance, and their disturbance can easily contribute towards the extinction vortex of species. Here we show, in a small Atlantic island (Raso) in the Cabo Verde Archipelago, using DNA metabarcoding, the extent of trophic dependence of the Endangered giant wall gecko Tarentola gigas on endemic populations of vertebrates, including one of the rarest bird species of the world, the Critically Endangered Raso lark Alauda razae. We found that the Raso lark (27%), Iago sparrow Passer iagoensis (12%), Bulwer's petrel Bulweria bulwerii (15%) and the Cabo Verde shearwater Calonectris edwardsii (10%) are the most frequent vertebrate signatures found in the faeces of the giant wall gecko. This work provides the first integrative assessment of their trophic links, an important issue to be considered for the long-term conservation of these small and isolated island ecosystems.
Data from: Linking size spectrum, energy flux and trophic multifunctionality in soil food webs of tropical land-use systems
1. Many ecosystem functions depend on the structure of food webs, which heavily relies on the body size spectrum of the community. Despite that, little is known on how the size spectrum of soil animals responds to agricultural practices in tropical land-use systems and how these responses affect ecosystem functioning. 2. We studied land-use induced changes in belowground communities in tropical lowland ecosystems in Sumatra (Jambi province, Indonesia), a hotspot of tropical rainforest conversion to rubber and oil palm plantations. The study included ca. 30,000 measured individuals from 33 high-order taxa of meso- and macrofauna spanning eight orders of magnitude in body mass. Using individual body masses we calculated the metabolism of trophic guilds and used food-web models to calculate energy fluxes and infer ecosystem functions, such as decomposition, herbivory, primary and intraguild predation. 3. Land-use change was associated with reduced abundance and taxonomic diversity of soil invertebrates, but strong increase in total biomass and moderate changes in total energy flux. These changes were due to increased biomass of large-sized decomposers in soil, in particular earthworms, with their share in community metabolism increasing from 11% in rainforest to 59-76% in jungle rubber, and rubber and oil palm plantations. Decomposition, i.e. the energy flux to decomposers, stayed unchanged, but herbivory, primary and intraguild predation decreased by an order of magnitude in plantation systems. Intraguild predation was very important, being responsible for 38% of the energy flux in rainforest according to our model. 4. Conversion of rainforest into monoculture plantations is associated by an uneven loss of size classes and trophic levels of soil invertebrates resulting in sequestration of energy in large-sized primary consumers and restricted flux of energy to higher trophic levels. Pronounced differences between rainforest and jungle rubber reflect sensitivity of rainforest soil animal communities to moderate land-use changes. Soil communities in plantation systems sustained high total energy flux despite reduced biodiversity. The high energy flux into large decomposers but low energy fluxes to other trophic guilds suggests that trophic multifunctionality of belowground communities is compromised in plantation systems.
Data from: Molecular detection of trophic links in a complex insect host-parasitoid food web
Previously, host-parasitoid links have been unveiled almost exclusively by time-intensive rearing, while molecular methods were used only in simple agricultural host-parasitoid systems in the form of species specific primers. Here we present a general method for molecular detection of these links applied to a complex caterpillar-parasitoid food web from tropical rainforest of Papua New Guinea. We DNA barcoded hosts, parasitoids and their tissue remnants and matched the sequences to our extensive library of local species. We were thus able to match 87% of host sequences and 36% of parasitoid sequences to species, and infer subfamily or family in almost all cases. Our analysis affirmed 93 hitherto unknown trophic links between 37 host species from a wide range of Lepidoptera families and 46 parasitoid species from Hymenoptera and Diptera by identifying DNA sequences for both the host and the parasitoid involved in the interaction. Molecular detection proved especially useful in cases where distinguishing host species in caterpillar stage was difficult morphologically, or when the caterpillar died during rearing. We have even detected a case of extreme parasitoid specialization in a pair of Choreutis species which do not differ in caterpillar morphology and ecology. Using the molecular approach outlined here leads to better understanding of parasitoid host specificity, opens new possibilities for rapid surveys of food web structure and allows inference of species associations not already anticipated.
Data from: Linking size spectrum, energy flux and trophic multifunctionality in soil food webs of tropical land-use systems
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Data from: Molecular detection of trophic links in a complex insect host-parasitoid food web
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Data from: Intricate trophic links between threatened vertebrates confined to a small island in the Atlantic Ocean
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Data from: Exploitation of the same trophic link favors convergence of larval life-history strategies in complex life cycle helminths
Switching from one host to the next is a critical life history transition in parasites with complex life cycles. Growth and mortality rates are thought to influence the optimal time and size at transmission, but these rates are difficult to measure in parasites. The parasite life cycle, in particular the trophic link along which transmission occurs, may be a reasonable proxy for these rates, leading to the hypothesis that life cycle should shape life history strategy. We compiled data on the size and age at infectivity for trophically-transmitted helminths (i.e. acanthocephalans, cestodes, and nematodes), and then categorized species into trophic links (e.g. planktonic crustaceans to fish, insects to terrestrial vertebrates, etc.). Comparative analyses that explicitly included stabilizing selection within trophic links fit the data significantly better than random walk models, indicating that parasites with different life cycles have different optimal times/sizes for host switching. The major helminth groups have often independently evolved similar life cycles, and we show that this has frequently led to convergent and/or parallel evolution of size and age at infectivity. This suggests that for particular life cycles there are universal optimal transmission strategies, applicable to widely divergent taxa, although the cases of parallelism might indicate that lineage-specific constraints sometimes prevent evolution to a single adaptive peak.
Data from: Exploitation of the same trophic link favors convergence of larval life-history strategies in complex life cycle helminths
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OpenNeuro
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