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Numerical response of mammalian carnivores to rodents affects bird reproduction in temperate forests: A case of apparent competition?

ABSTRACT: Resource pulses such as mast seeding in temperate forests may affect interspecific interactions over multiple trophic levels and link different seed and nonseed consumers directly via predation or indirectly via shared predators. However, the nature and strength of interactions among species remain unknown for most resource pulse-driven ecosystems. We considered five hypotheses concerning the influence of resource pulses on the interactions between rodents, predators, and bird reproduction with data from northern Switzerland collected between 2010 and 2015. In high-rodent-abundance-years (HRAYs), wood warbler (Phylloscopus sibilatrix) nest survival was lower than in low-rodent-abundance-years, but rodents were not important nest predators, in contrast to rodent-hunting predators. The higher proportion of nests predated by rodent-hunting predators and their increased occurrence in HRAYs suggests a rodent-mediated aggregative numerical response of rodent-hunting predators, which incidentally prey on the wood warbler's ground nests. There was no evidence that rodent-hunting predators responded behaviorally by switching prey. Lastly, nest losses caused by nonrodent-hunting predators were not related to rodent abundance. We show that wood warblers and rodents are linked via shared predators in a manner consistent with apparent competition, where an increase of one species coincides with the decrease of another species mediated by shared predators. Mast seeding frequency and annual seed production appear to have increased over the past century, which may result in more frequent HRAYs and generally higher peaking rodent populations. The associated increase in the magnitude of apparent competition may thus at least to some extent explain the wood warbler's decline in much of Western Europe.

SUBMITTER: Grendelmeier A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6303777 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Numerical response of mammalian carnivores to rodents affects bird reproduction in temperate forests: A case of apparent competition?

Grendelmeier Alex A Arlettaz Raphaël R Pasinelli Gilberto G

Ecology and evolution 20181120 23

Resource pulses such as mast seeding in temperate forests may affect interspecific interactions over multiple trophic levels and link different seed and nonseed consumers directly via predation or indirectly via shared predators. However, the nature and strength of interactions among species remain unknown for most resource pulse-driven ecosystems. We considered five hypotheses concerning the influence of resource pulses on the interactions between rodents, predators, and bird reproduction with ...[more]

PMID: 30598759

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Project description:Temperate savannas and grasslands are globally threatened. In the Midwest United States of America (USA), for example, oak savannas persist today at a small percentage of recent historic coverage. Therefore, restoration of habitats of low and intermediate canopy cover is a landscape conservation priority that often emphasizes returning tree density to a savanna-like target value. Understanding how animal species react to such changes in vegetation structure is important for assessing the value of these restoration plans. We examined how butterfly community attributes in northwest Indiana USA, including community composition, richness, and abundance responded to a grassland-to-forest gradient of canopy cover. Butterfly community composition under intermediate canopy cover differed significantly from community composition in the most open or closed-canopy habitats. Composition of the plant community in flower was a significant predictor of three assessed attributes of the butterfly community-composition, richness, and abundance. Phenology, expressed as day-of-the-year, was also a strong predictor of these butterfly community attributes. Few butterfly species were habitat specialists as adults although canopy cover was a more important predictor of adult community composition than of richness or abundance of butterflies. Therefore, adult butterfly community differences along the canopy cover gradient were less about butterfly communities filled with habitat specialists for different canopy-defined habitats and more about gradual changes in community composition along this gradient. Overall, butterfly community richness was predicted to peak at about 34% canopy cover, butterfly abundance at about 53% canopy cover, community conservation value at about 59% canopy cover, and a combination of desirable conservation attributes-high diversity, high abundance, and high conservation value-was predicted to reach a peak of co-occurrence at about 67% canopy cover suggesting that habitats of intermediate canopy cover might be particularly effective for butterfly conservation in this region.

Dataset Information

Numerical response of mammalian carnivores to rodents affects bird reproduction in temperate forests: A case of apparent competition?

Publications

Numerical response of mammalian carnivores to rodents affects bird reproduction in temperate forests: A case of apparent competition?

Similar Datasets

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