Experimental Ecology of Food Webs: Complex Systems in Temporary Ponds

Abstract

MacArthur Award Recipient 2280 HENRY M. WILBUR Ecology Vol. 78, No. 8 dation. The addition of predation to these systems has three effects. (1) Predators can reduce, even eliminate, prey. There are species-specific differences among co-occurring prey in their risks of predation, and these risks change with relative body sizes of predator and prey. (2) Individuals may evoke an inducible defense that reduces their risk by either decreasing active foraging or developing morphological adaptations, such as changes in the coloration and shape of tails. These defenses may entail costs in body size and timing of metamorphosis. (3) Finally, mortality due to predators may reduce competition, thereby benefiting the population of the prey by permitting individuals that escape predation to grow rapidly enough to escape drying ponds.The order of arrival of species at breeding ponds has an impact on their own success as well as having a lasting impact on the success of species that arrive later. Such priority effects may result from size-specific changes in trophic connections or indirect effects between species mediated through the food web. Anurans can have strong effects on the partitioning of the flow of nutrients through the phytoplankton vs. the periphyton. This effect on partitioning of production can then have strong effects on zooplankton and insects. Salamanders can play the role of keystone, or critical, predators by affecting the structure of the assemblages of zooplankton and anurans that determine much of the dynamics of nutrient flows within food webs in temporary ponds.

Spatial and temporal dynamics of habitat selection across canopy gradients generates patterns of species richness and composition in aquatic beetles

“…Aquatic communities are embedded within a terrestrial matrix, and linked strongly to this matrix by the movement of multiple species across aquatic-terrestrial boundaries ( Wilbur, 1997 ). Disturbances such as fire, timber harvest, etc.…”

“…Colonisation , connectivity , dispersal , diversity , oviposition site selection , metacommunity . Thus, predicting the responses of species and communities to both natural and anthropogenic environmental change requires an understanding of how different dispersal strategies are distributed among sets of species, and how these interact with environmental heterogeneity to affect patch-specific colonisation rates ( Binckley & Resetarits, 2002.Aquatic communities are embedded within a terrestrial matrix, and linked strongly to this matrix by the movement of multiple species across aquatic-terrestrial boundaries ( Wilbur, 1997 ). Disturbances such as fire, timber harvest, etc.…”

Disentangling the spatial patterns in community composition of prokaryotic and eukaryotic lake plankton

“…Small lakes and ponds constitute rather discrete habitats that are often only connected by the overland dispersal of their biota (Wilbur 1997). Dispersal limitation may thus have a major role in structuring pond communities.…”

Canopy cover and structural complexity affect the phylogenetic composition of a pond-dwelling Neotropical anuran metacommunity

“…These species usually take advantage of the flush of primary productivity available in open canopy ponds (Wassersug 1975, Wilbur 1980, 1997, so tadpoles can reach metamorphosis rapidly before the pond dries. They also have reproductive modes adapted to withstand direct sunlinght exposure, such as foam nests (Wells 2007, Crump 2015.…”

“…Pond-dwelling amphibians are good model organisms to investigate metacommunity processes in freshwater ecosystems (Wilbur 1997), since they are subjected to different enviromental and spatial factors throughout their aquatic and terrestrial life stages (reviewed in Alford 1999, Wells 2007, which usually are scale dependent (e.g., Van Burskirk 2005). The dispersal is restricted to the adult stage, while the spatial distribution of larvae is determined by oviposition site selection by adults (Weels 2007).…”