Global Ecology and Conservation

Corlett, Richard T.

doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2015.12.001

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 62 publications

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“…However, species arenotindependentofeachother.Insteadtheyinteractincomplex foodwebsthatreflecttheflowofenergyandbiomassinthesystem, andtheinterdependencyamongspecies (Linketal.,2005).Thearchitectureoffoodwebs,namelytheconfigurationoftrophicinteractionsbetweenspeciesinacommunity,canbesummarizedintokey propertiesthathaveanimpactonfood-webdynamics(e.g.degreeof omnivory, generalism, compartmentalization, trophic chain lengths, see Botella et al, 2022). Changes in food-web architecture following land use intensification might be indicative of the potential for ecosystemcollapse (Evansetal.,2013;Keyesetal.,2021;Saint-Béat etal.,2015).Foodwebssustainanumberofecosystemfunctionsand services,suchaspestcontrol (Montoyaetal.,2003),seeddispersal (Corlett, 2017) or nutriment cycling in soils (De Vries et al, 2013), andtheirarchitecturepartlydeterminescommunitystability (Mestre etal.,2022;Saint-Béatetal.,2015;Tylianakisetal.,2010).Wethus urgentlyneedtounderstandhowchangesinlandusewillmodifythe architecture of food webs (Li et al, 2018;Rigal et al, 2022). While localstudiesfocusingonspecificlandusesortaxonomicgroupscan helpformulatehypothesesonhowlandmanagementintensityaffects food-webarchitecture (Agostinietal.,2020;deVisseretal.,2011;Gossneretal.,2016;Hallmannetal.,2014;Heger&Jeschke,2018;Herbstetal.,2013),welackamacroecologicalassessmentofthese hypothesesandtheircontextdependence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land‐use intensity influences European tetrapod food webs

Botella,

Gaüzère,

O'Connor

et al. 2024

Global Change Biology

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Land use intensification favours particular trophic groups which can induce architectural changes in food webs. These changes can impact ecosystem functions, services, stability and resilience. However, the imprint of land management intensity on food‐web architecture has rarely been characterized across large spatial extent and various land uses. We investigated the influence of land management intensity on six facets of food‐web architecture, namely apex and basal species proportions, connectance, omnivory, trophic chain lengths and compartmentalization, for 67,051 European terrestrial vertebrate communities. We also assessed the dependency of this influence of intensification on land use and climate. In addition to more commonly considered climatic factors, the architecture of food webs was notably influenced by land use and management intensity. Intensification tended to strongly lower the proportion of apex predators consistently across contexts. In general, intensification also tended to lower proportions of basal species, favoured mesopredators, decreased food webs compartmentalization whereas it increased their connectance. However, the response of food webs to intensification was different for some contexts. Intensification sharply decreased connectance in Mediterranean and Alpine settlements, and it increased basal tetrapod proportions and compartmentalization in Mediterranean forest and Atlantic croplands. Besides, intensive urbanization especially favoured longer trophic chains and lower omnivory. By favouring mesopredators in most contexts, intensification could undermine basal tetrapods, the cascading effects of which need to be assessed. Our results support the importance of protecting top predators where possible and raise questions about the long‐term stability of food webs in the face of human‐induced pressures.

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