Linking community size structure and ecosystem functioning using metabolic theory

Yvon‐Durocher, Gabriel; Allen, Andrew P.

doi:10.1098/rstb.2012.0246

Cited by 94 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…negative effects on both benthic and pelagic primary producer biomass [17,24,50]. We did not measure DO in the tanks with sufficient frequency to estimate the magnitudes of ecosystem respiration or gross primary production, therefore we are unable to test the expectation that respiration responds more strongly to warming than production [17,50].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Warming shifts top-down and bottom-up control of pond food web structure and function

Shurin

Clasen

Greig

et al. 2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

251

241

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The effects of global and local environmental changes are transmitted through networks of interacting organisms to shape the structure of communities and the dynamics of ecosystems. We tested the impact of elevated temperature on the top-down and bottom-up forces structuring experimental freshwater pond food webs in western Canada over 16 months. Experimental warming was crossed with treatments manipulating the presence of planktivorous fish and eutrophication through enhanced nutrient supply. We found that higher temperatures produced top-heavy food webs with lower biomass of benthic and pelagic producers, equivalent biomass of zooplankton, zoobenthos and pelagic bacteria, and more pelagic viruses. Eutrophication increased the biomass of all organisms studied, while fish had cascading positive effects on periphyton, phytoplankton and bacteria, and reduced biomass of invertebrates. Surprisingly, virus biomass was reduced in the presence of fish, suggesting the possibility for complex mechanisms of top-down control of the lytic cycle. Warming reduced the effects of eutrophication on periphyton, and magnified the already strong effects of fish on phytoplankton and bacteria. Warming, fish and nutrients all increased whole-system rates of net production despite their distinct impacts on the distribution of biomass between producers and consumers, plankton and benthos, and microbes and macrobes. Our results indicate that warming exerts a host of indirect effects on aquatic food webs mediated through shifts in the magnitudes of top-down and bottom-up forcing.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Warming shifts top-down and bottom-up control of pond food web structure and function

Shurin

Clasen

Greig

et al. 2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

251

241

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“…Interestingly, this suggests that warming may have profound consequences for ecosystem functioning prior to extinctions [14]. In the same vein, an aquatic mesocosm experiment demonstrated that long-term changes in the size structure had knock-on effects on community metabolism and biogeochemical fluxes that were stronger than the direct consequences of warming [9].…”

Section: Warming and Top-down Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This theme issue integrates novel approaches for addressing the consequences of climate change in complex, sizestructured ecosystems. This includes the development of novel concepts [7][8][9][10], model analyses [11][12][13] and empirical studies in marine [14,15], freshwater [16,17] and terrestrial ecosystems [18][19][20][21][22]. In the following, we will introduce the framework of this theme issue by describing the complexity and the size structure of natural communities and how they might interact with climate change in determining top-down or bottom-up control, community stability and spatial processes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change in size-structured ecosystems

Brose

Dunne

Montoya

et al. 2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

176

170

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One important aspect of climate change is the increase in average temperature, which will not only have direct physiological effects on all species but also indirectly modifies abundances, interaction strengths, food-web topologies, community stability and functioning. In this theme issue, we highlight a novel pathway through which warming indirectly affects ecological communities: by changing their size structure (i.e. the body-size distributions). Warming can shift these distributions towards dominance of small-over large-bodied species. The conceptual, theoretical and empirical research described in this issue, in sum, suggests that effects of temperature may be dominated by changes in size structure, with relatively weak direct effects. For example, temperature effects via size structure have implications for top-down and bottom-up control in ecosystems and may ultimately yield novel communities. Moreover, scaling up effects of temperature and body size from physiology to the levels of populations, communities and ecosystems may provide a crucially important mechanistic approach for forecasting future consequences of global warming.

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“…6). The availability of fine and coarse scale structural complexity often varies among habitats, with direct implications for the distribution of organisms 7, 8 , the maintenance of ecosystem processes 9, 10 , and the resilience of communities 2 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-scale habitat structure driven by coral species composition on tropical reefs

Richardson

Graham

Hoey

2017

Sci Rep

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The availability of habitat structure across spatial scales can determine ecological organization and resilience. However, anthropogenic disturbances are altering the abundance and composition of habitat-forming organisms. How such shifts in the composition of these organisms alter the physical structure of habitats across ecologically important scales remains unclear. At a time of unprecedented coral loss and homogenization of coral assemblages globally, we investigate the inherent structural complexity of taxonomically distinct reefs, across five ecologically relevant scales of measurement (4–64 cm). We show that structural complexity was influenced by coral species composition, and was not a simple function of coral cover on the studied reefs. However, inter-habitat variation in structural complexity changed with scale. Importantly, the scales at which habitat structure was available also varied among habitats. Complexity at the smallest, most vulnerable scale (4 cm) varied the most among habitats, which could have inferences for as much as half of all reef fishes which are small-bodied and refuge dependent for much of their lives. As disturbances continue and species shifts persist, the future of these ecosystems may rely on a greater concern for the composition of habitat-building species and prioritization of particular configurations for protection of maximal cross-scale habitat structural complexity.

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Linking community size structure and ecosystem functioning using metabolic theory

Cited by 94 publications

References 48 publications

Warming shifts top-down and bottom-up control of pond food web structure and function

Warming shifts top-down and bottom-up control of pond food web structure and function

Climate change in size-structured ecosystems

Cross-scale habitat structure driven by coral species composition on tropical reefs

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