Foraging strategies of individual silky pocket mice over a boom–bust cycle in a stochastic dryland ecosystem

Noble, Jennifer Darby; Collins, Scott L.; Hallmark, Alesia; Maldonado, Karin; Wolf, Blair O.; Newsome, Seth D.

doi:10.1007/s00442-019-04432-x

Cited by 16 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…We found support for each of these ecological stressors influencing individual diets. Consistent with niche theory and empirical studies, intraspecific competition significantly increased individual diet specialization in all heteromyid species, presumably to minimize competitive interactions with conspecifics (Noble et al, 2019;. Likewise, interspecific competition significantly increased individual specialization, as did the interaction between intraspecific and interspecific competition.…”

Section: Re Sultssupporting

confidence: 77%

“…Like many dryland ecosystems, though, the Chihuahan Desert climate is becoming increasingly stochastic, triggering changes in resource abundance and diversity (Collins et al, 2020;Rudgers et al, 2018). This shifting resource availability has considerable potential to affect consumers (Kazenel et al, 2020;Noble et al, 2019), and our results indicate that dietmediated fitness variation could be the proximate mechanism restructuring consumer communities in this rapidly changing arid ecosystem.…”

Section: Re Sultsmentioning

confidence: 73%

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Competition shapes individual foraging and survival in a desert rodent ensemble

Manlick

Maldonado

Newsome

2021

Journal of Animal Ecology

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1. Intraspecific variation, including individual diet variation, can structure populations and communities, but the causes and consequences of individual foraging strategies are often unclear.2. Interactions between competition and resources are thought to dictate foraging strategies (e.g. specialization vs. generalization), but classical paradigms such as optimal foraging and niche theory offer contrasting predictions for individual consumers. Furthermore, both paradigms assume that individual foraging strategies maximize fitness, yet this prediction is rarely tested.3. We used repeated stable isotope measurements (δ 13 C, δ 15 N; N = 3,509) and 6 years of capture-mark-recapture data to quantify the relationship between environmental variation, individual foraging and consumer fitness among four species of desert rodents. We tested the relative effects of intraspecific competition, interspecific competition, resource abundance and resource diversity on the foraging strategies of 349 individual animals, and then quantified apparent survival as function of individual foraging strategies. 4. Consistent with niche theory, individuals contracted their trophic niches and increased foraging specialization in response to both intraspecific and interspecific competition, but this effect was offset by resource availability and individuals generalized when plant biomass was high. Nevertheless, individual specialists obtained no apparent fitness benefit from trophic niche contractions as the most specialized individuals exhibited a 10% reduction in monthly survival compared to the most generalized individuals. Ultimately, this resulted in annual survival probabilities nearly 4× higher for generalists compared to specialists. 5. These results indicate that competition is the proximate driver of individual foraging strategies, and that diet-mediated fitness variation regulates population and community dynamics in stochastic resource environments. Furthermore, our findings show dietary generalism is a fitness maximizing strategy, suggesting that plastic foraging strategies may play a key role in species' ability to cope with environmental change.

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Section: Re Sultssupporting

confidence: 77%

Section: Re Sultsmentioning

confidence: 73%

Competition shapes individual foraging and survival in a desert rodent ensemble

Manlick

Maldonado

Newsome

2021

Journal of Animal Ecology

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“…The consumer community at the SNWR is dominated by small mammals and insect herbivores, and our long-term data and consumer exclusion experiments show that consumer abundance largely tracks primary production (B aez et al 2006, Lightfoot 2011, Noble et al 2019. Nutritious, herbaceous C 3 plants constitute an important component of production for consumers (Yeakel et al 2020).…”

Section: Transitions Among Dryland Ecosystems Under Increasing Climate Variabilitymentioning

confidence: 72%

State changes: insights from the U.S. Long Term Ecological Research Network

et al. 2021

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Understanding the complex and unpredictable ways ecosystems are changing and predicting the state of ecosystems and the services they will provide in the future requires coordinated, long-term research. This paper is a product of a U.S. National Science Foundation funded Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) network synthesis effort that addressed anticipated changes in future populations and communities. Each LTER site described what their site would look like in 50 or 100 yr based on long-term patterns and responses to global change drivers in each ecosystem. Common themes emerged and predictions were grouped into state change, connectivity, resilience, time lags, and cascading effects. Here, we report on the "state change" theme, which includes examples from the Georgia Coastal (coastal marsh), Konza Prairie (mesic grassland), Luquillo (tropical forest), Sevilleta (arid grassland), and Virginia Coastal (coastal grassland) sites. Ecological thresholds (the point at which small changes in an environmental driver can produce an abrupt and persistent state change in an ecosystem quality, property, or phenomenon) were most commonly predicted. For example, in coastal ecosystems, sea-level rise and climate change could convert salt marsh to mangroves and coastal barrier dunes to shrub thicket. Reduced fire frequency has converted grassland to shrubland in mesic prairie, whereas overgrazing combined with drought drive shrub encroachment in arid grasslands. Lastly, tropical cloud forests are susceptible to climate-induced changes in cloud base altitude leading to shifts in species distributions. Overall, these examples reveal that state change is a likely outcome of global environmental change across a diverse range of ecosystems and highlight the need for long-term studies to sort out the causes and consequences of state change. The diversity of sites within the LTER network facilitates the emergence of overarching concepts about state changes as an important driver of ecosystem structure, function, services, and futures.

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“…For example, altered above‐ground plant tissue density could have cascading effects on consumers in resource‐poor environments. Plant size‐biomass allometries could affect the amount of resources available in a single foraging patch and thereby alter optimal foraging strategies of consumers, such as small mammals, which shift diet dramatically in response to climate in desert ecosystems (Noble et al, ). Similarly, shifts in biomass per unit cover could influence the pace of pathogen transmission among plant leaves and stems, affecting disease dynamics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity of dryland plant allometry to climate

et al. 2019

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Patterns of plant biomass partitioning are fundamental to estimates of primary productivity and ecosystem process rates. Allometric relationships between above‐ground plant biomass and non‐destructive measures of plant size, such as cover, volume or stem density are widely used in plant ecology. Such size‐biomass allometry is often assumed to be invariant for a given plant species, plant functional group or ecosystem type. Allometric adjustment may be an important component of the short‐ or long‐term response of plants to abiotic conditions. We used 18 years of size‐biomass data describing of 85 plant species to investigate the sensitivity of allometry to precipitation, temperature or drought across two seasons and four ecosystems in central New Mexico, USA. Size‐biomass allometry varied with climate in 65%–70% of plant species. Closely related plant species had similar sensitivities of allometry to natural spatiotemporal variation in precipitation, temperature or drought. Annuals were less sensitive than perennials, and forbs were less sensitive than grasses or shrubs. However, the differences associated with plant life history or functional group were not independent of plant evolutionary history, as supported by the application of phylogenetically independent contrasts. Our results demonstrate that many plant species adjust patterns in the partitioning of above‐ground biomass under different climates and highlight the importance of long‐term data for understanding functional differences among plant species. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

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Foraging strategies of individual silky pocket mice over a boom–bust cycle in a stochastic dryland ecosystem

Cited by 16 publications

References 70 publications

Competition shapes individual foraging and survival in a desert rodent ensemble

Competition shapes individual foraging and survival in a desert rodent ensemble

State changes: insights from the U.S. Long Term Ecological Research Network

Sensitivity of dryland plant allometry to climate

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