Patterns of Food Chain Length in Lakes: A Stable Isotope Study

Zanden, M. Jake Vander; Shuter, Brian J.; Lester, Nigel P.; Rasmussen, Joseph B.

doi:10.1086/303250

Cited by 289 publications

(209 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…Our findings extend previous knowledge by showing that thermal effects act to shift consumptive pathways according to spatial temperature features across systems. In a general sense, this result supports recent research that argues for spatial conditions as an important regulator of the fundamental pathways of energy flow from basal resources to predators in food webs (19,21,32,40).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Effects of differential habitat warming on complex communities

Tunney

McCann

Lester

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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116

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Food webs unfold across a mosaic of micro and macro habitats, with each habitat coupled by mobile consumers that behave in response to local environmental conditions. Despite this fundamental characteristic of nature, research on how climate change will affect whole ecosystems has overlooked (i) that climate warming will generally affect habitats differently and (ii) that mobile consumers may respond to this differential change in a manner that may fundamentally alter the energy pathways that sustain ecosystems. This reasoning suggests a powerful, but largely unexplored, avenue for studying the impacts of climate change on ecosystem functioning. Here, we use lake ecosystems to show that predictable behavioral adjustments to local temperature differentials govern a fundamental structural shift across 54 food webs. Data show that the trophic pathways from basal resources to a cold-adapted predator shift toward greater reliance on a cold-water refuge habitat, and food chain length increases, as air temperatures rise. Notably, cold-adapted predator behavior may substantially drive this decoupling effect across the climatic range in our study independent of warmer-adapted species responses (for example, changes in nearshore species abundance and predator absence). Such modifications reflect a flexible food web architecture that requires more attention from climate change research. The trophic pathway restructuring documented here is expected to alter biomass accumulation, through the regulation of energy fluxes to predators, and thus potentially threatens ecosystem sustainability in times of rapid environmental change.species interactions | thermoregulation | trophic structure | habitat coupling | heterogeneity N atural systems are inherently complex entities, wherein organisms act as agents of material and biomass transport (1) weaving food webs through a mosaic thermal environment. Direct temperature effects on trophic interactions arise through thermal regulation of an organism's physiology and behavior (2-5). For ecotherms (that is, organisms whose body temperature is aligned with ambient temperature), several biological rates show unimodal responses to temperature (2, 3, 6), and correspondingly, studies have shown that consumption rates initially rise with warming to a peak rate and then fall rapidly approaching a critical temperature (6). Understanding the ways that these organism responses alter food webs, and how these food web responses affect ecosystem function, are key requirements to predicting climate change impacts on ecosystems (7-11).A simple way to think about temperature's effects on any single trophic interaction is through the general linear consumption function:Consumptionðper capitaÞ = a t s R;[1]where a is the attack rate, t s is the time searching, and R is the resource biomass density. The direct effects of temperature on an organism's ability to encounter and capture resources in a given habitat may largely depend on a, and t s (with potential indirect effects relative to the consumer throug...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Effects of differential habitat warming on complex communities

Tunney

McCann

Lester

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

116

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“…In turn, maximum TL varied seasonally, with higher values during the most productive season at both N and S. Consistently, top predators Micropogonias furnieri (present at both sites) and Hoplias malabaricus (only at N) also evidenced higher TL in summer (Fig. 3), in line with the expected increase in the maximum length of energy pathways with increased system productivity (Vander Zanden et al 1999).Similarities in OM sources, intermediate consumers and maximum TL between N and S sites of LR were contrary to our prediction, indicating that in lagoon estuaries trophic structure does not always change along environmental gradients. In the present case, 2 factors contributed to the unexpected result: first, prevalence of marsh plants (Schoenoplectus californicus and Potamogeton sp.)…”

supporting

confidence: 70%

Food web of a SW Atlantic shallow coastal lagoon: spatial environmental variability does not impose substantial changes in the trophic structure

Rodríguez-Graña¹,

Danilo²,

Conde³

et al. 2008

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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We performed a detailed analysis of the food web structure of Laguna de Rocha, a temporally open coastal lagoon in the Southwest Atlantic, characterised by spatial gradients in salinity, nutrient levels and trophic status. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes of main producers, invertebrate and vertebrate consumers, and stomach contents of ichthyofauna were analysed seasonally at freshwater (north) and marine-influenced (south) sites to determine whether environmental differences induced changes in food web structure. Contribution of primary and secondary food sources and trophic linkages were assessed with the multisource-partitioning model IsoSource and an index that quantifies the contribution of each organism as food for the ecosystem. Isotopic analyses were performed for 10 primary organic matter sources (OM), 13 invertebrates and 9 fish species. Suspended and sediment OM constituted the most important primary sources, while direct consumption of macrophytes and macroalgae was marginal. The small invertebrates Neomysis americana, Nephtys fluviatilis, Pseudodiaptomus richardii and an amphipod were the most important intermediate consumers at both sites (except P. richardii, which was present only in the north). Top predators were the fish species Micropogonias furnieri, Paralichthys orbygnianus and Hoplias malabaricus, and the maximum estimated trophic level (between 3.4 and 4.8) varied seasonally, but not between sites. Fish stomach content analyses largely confirmed results from the IsoSource mixing model. Overall results indicated that, despite environmental differences between sites, the structure of the biological assemblages and general trophic patterns were similar at both sites.KEY WORDS: Food web structure · Coastal lagoon · Estuaries · Benthic-pelagic coupling · Isotopic mixing models Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherMar Ecol Prog Ser 362: [69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83] 2008 organic matter (OM) sources, energy pathways supporting consumers, and the processes modulating their spatial and temporal variability (Chanton & Lewis 2002, Froneman 2004. Most studies in shallow estuaries have focused on identifying OM sources that sustain specific consumer groups. Traditional views of macrophyte detritus as a fuel for secondary production (Odum & Heald 1975) have received only partial support (Deegan & Garrit 1997, Kwak & Zedler 1997, Chanton & Lewis 2002, Kibirige et al. 2002, Perissinotto et al. 2003, Vizzini & Mazzola 2003, Bouillon et al. 2004. Microphytobenthic algae, phytoplankton, macrophytes and detritus can all be important sources, and relative contributions differ between systems according to environmental characteristics (Kanaya et al. 2007).Less effort has been devoted to identifying the most significant secondary-level food sources (i.e. heterotrophic OM sources for secondary and higher consumers). The structure of the assemblage of intermediate consumers that link basal OM sources and higher predators can be...

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“…This value can be estimated in natural ecosystems by using the stable isotope technique (Vander Zanden et al 1999;Post et al 2000a;Takimoto et al 2008;Doi et al 2009). For runs with multiple top predators and/or basal species, we used the maximum value among all combinations of top predator and basal species.…”

Section: Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food-chain length and adaptive foraging

Kondo

Ninomiya

2009

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Food-chain length, the number of feeding links from the basal species to the top predator, is a key characteristic of biological communities. However, the determinants of food-chain length still remain controversial. While classical theory predicts that food-chain length should increase with increasing resource availability, empirical supports of this prediction are limited to those from simple, artificial microcosms. A positive resource availability -chain length relationship has seldom been observed in natural ecosystems. Here, using a theoretical model, we show that those correlations, or no relationships, may be explained by considering the dynamic food-web reconstruction induced by predator's adaptive foraging. More specifically, with foraging adaptation, the food-chain length becomes relatively invariant, or even decreases with increasing resource availability, in contrast to a non-adaptive counterpart where chain length increases with increasing resource availability; and that maximum chain length more sharply decreases with resource availability either when species richness is higher or potential link number is larger. The interactive effects of resource availability, adaptability and community complexity may explain the contradictory effects of resource availability in simple microcosms and larger ecosystems. The model also explains the recently reported positive effect of habitat size on food-chain length as a result of increased species richness and/or decreased connectance owing to interspecific spatial segregation.

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Patterns of Food Chain Length in Lakes: A Stable Isotope Study

Cited by 289 publications

References 65 publications

Effects of differential habitat warming on complex communities

Effects of differential habitat warming on complex communities

Food web of a SW Atlantic shallow coastal lagoon: spatial environmental variability does not impose substantial changes in the trophic structure

Food-chain length and adaptive foraging

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