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Plant diversity alters the representation of motifs in food webs.

ABSTRACT: Changes in the diversity of plant communities may undermine the economically and environmentally important consumer species they support. The structure of trophic interactions determines the sensitivity of food webs to perturbations, but rigorous assessments of plant diversity effects on network topology are lacking. Here, we use highly resolved networks from a grassland biodiversity experiment to test how plant diversity affects the prevalence of different food web motifs, the smaller recurrent sub-networks that form the building blocks of complex networks. We find that the representation of tri-trophic chain, apparent competition and exploitative competition motifs increases with plant species richness, while the representation of omnivory motifs decreases. Moreover, plant species richness is associated with altered patterns of local interactions among arthropod consumers in which plants are not directly involved. These findings reveal novel structuring forces that plant diversity exerts on food webs with potential implications for the persistence and functioning of multitrophic communities.

SUBMITTER: Giling DP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6420570 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Plant diversity alters the representation of motifs in food webs.

Giling Darren P DP Ebeling Anne A Eisenhauer Nico N Meyer Sebastian T ST Roscher Christiane C Rzanny Michael M Voigt Winfried W Weisser Wolfgang W WW Hines Jes J

Nature communications 20190315 1

Changes in the diversity of plant communities may undermine the economically and environmentally important consumer species they support. The structure of trophic interactions determines the sensitivity of food webs to perturbations, but rigorous assessments of plant diversity effects on network topology are lacking. Here, we use highly resolved networks from a grassland biodiversity experiment to test how plant diversity affects the prevalence of different food web motifs, the smaller recurrent ...[more]

PMID: 30874561

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Project description:Fatty acids are essential to macroinvertebrate growth and reproduction and can indicate food web structure and nutritional quality of basal resources. However, broad-scale examinations of how catchment land cover and associated stressors affect the proportions of fatty acids (FAs) in stream food webs are few.Here, we: (1) examine relationships among proportions of FAs among benthic periphyton and macroinvertebrate collector/gatherers, shredders, and predators; and (2) test if relationships between periphytic and macroinvertebrate FAs were altered due to the intensity of urban development in catchments.Proportions of the ?20-C eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA 20:5?3), arachidonic acid (ARA 20:4?6), and docosahexaenoic acid (22:6?3) indicated collector/gatherers had a diet richer in periphyton than in shredders, which had significantly lower proportions of these FAs. Collector/gatherers were in turn likely to be high-quality sources of ?3 and ? 20-C FAs for predators, which also had significantly greater EPA and ARA proportions than those in shredders. Linoleic (18:2?6) and ?-linolenic acid (18:3?3) comprised the greatest proportions of FAs in shredders, which suggested a diet dominated by leaf litter and associated hyphomycetes.As catchment urbanisation increased, proportions of total ?3 FAs and EPA in periphyton were significantly greater. This pattern also was seen through macroinvertebrate consumers and predators, given that proportions of these FAs in macroinvertebrates also were significantly correlated with factors associated with catchment urbanisation. The significant increase in total ?3 FAs and EPA proportions within shredders indicated that periphyton growth, and their FAs, increased on leaf litter, probably due to greater nutrient concentrations associated with catchment urbanisation. Proportions of total ?6 FAs in biota were not significantly correlated with factors associated with urban development, which could indicate that they were of sufficient abundance for consumers regardless of urban intensity or possible changes in their sources.Our study provides an informative first step that identified notable differences in proportions of FAs among macroinvertebrates in urban streams and an increase in proportions of total ?3 FAs and EPA in periphyton, consumers, and predators as catchment urbanisation increases. Identifying how FA relationships within food webs change in response to catchment alterations and stressors could inform land use and management decisions by linking environmental changes to measures important to ecosystem outcomes.

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Plant diversity alters the representation of motifs in food webs.

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Plant diversity alters the representation of motifs in food webs.

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