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The combined effects of biotic and abiotic stress on species richness and connectance.

ABSTRACT: Food web structure and species richness are both subject to biotic (e.g. predation pressure and resource limitation) and abiotic stress (e.g. environmental change). We investigated the combined effects of both types of stress on richness and connectance, and on their relationship, in a predator-prey system. To this end, we developed a mathematical two trophic level food-web model to investigate the effects of biotic and abiotic stress on food web connectance and species richness. We found negative effects of top-down and bottom-up control on prey and predator richness, respectively. Effects of top-down and bottom-up control were stronger when initial connectance was high and low, respectively. Bottom-up control could either aggravate or buffer negative effects of top-down control. Abiotic stress affecting predator richness had positive indirect effects on prey richness, but only when initial connectance was low. However, no indirect effects on predator richness were observed following direct effects on prey richness. Top-down and bottom-up control selected for weakly connected prey and highly connected predators, thereby decreasing and increasing connectance, respectively. Our simulations suggest a broad range of negative and positive richness-connectance relationships, thereby revisiting the often found negative relationship between richness and connectance in food webs. Our results suggest that (1) initial food-web connectance strongly influences the effects of biotic stress on richness and the occurrence of indirect effects on richness; and (2) the shape of the richness-connectance relationship depends on the type of biotic stress.

SUBMITTER: Kulkarni D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5383007 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The combined effects of biotic and abiotic stress on species richness and connectance.

Kulkarni Devdutt D De Laender Frederik F

PloS one 20170301 3

Food web structure and species richness are both subject to biotic (e.g. predation pressure and resource limitation) and abiotic stress (e.g. environmental change). We investigated the combined effects of both types of stress on richness and connectance, and on their relationship, in a predator-prey system. To this end, we developed a mathematical two trophic level food-web model to investigate the effects of biotic and abiotic stress on food web connectance and species richness. We found negati ...[more]

PMID: 28248985

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Project description:Plants encounter several biotic and abiotic stresses, usually in combination. This results in major economic losses in agriculture and forestry every year. Climate change aggravates the adverse effects of combined stresses and increases such losses. Trees suffer even more from the recurrence of biotic and abiotic stress combinations owing to their long lifecycle. Despite the effort to study the damage from individual stress factors, less attention has been given to the effect of the complex interactions between multiple biotic and abiotic stresses. In this review, we assess the importance, impact, and mitigation strategies of climate change driven interactions between biotic and abiotic stresses in forestry. The ecological and economic importance of biotic and abiotic stresses under different combinations is highlighted by their contribution to the decline of the global forest area through their direct and indirect roles in forest loss and to the decline of biodiversity resulting from local extinction of endangered species of trees, emission of biogenic volatile organic compounds, and reduction in the productivity and quality of forest products and services. The abiotic stress factors such as high temperature and drought increase forest disease and insect pest outbreaks, decrease the growth of trees, and cause tree mortality. Reports of massive tree mortality events caused by "hotter droughts" are increasing all over the world, affecting several genera of trees including some of the most important genera in plantation forests, such as Pine, Poplar, and Eucalyptus. While the biotic stress factors such as insect pests, pathogens, and parasitic plants have been reported to be associated with many of these mortality events, a considerable number of the reports have not taken into account the contribution of such biotic factors. The available mitigation strategies also tend to undermine the interactive effect under combined stresses. Thus, this discussion centers on mitigation strategies based on research and innovation, which build on models previously used to curb individual stresses.

Dataset Information

The combined effects of biotic and abiotic stress on species richness and connectance.

Publications

The combined effects of biotic and abiotic stress on species richness and connectance.

Similar Datasets

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