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Nutrient enrichment and food chains: can evolution buffer top-down control?
Nicolas Loeuille1, Michel Loreau
1Laboratoire d'Ecologie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, UMR 7625, 46 rue d'Ulm, F-75230 Paris, Cedex 05, France. loeuille@biologie.ens.fr
Theoretical Population Biology
|April 7, 2004
Summary
Evolutionary dynamics significantly change nutrient enrichment effects on food webs. Coevolution between plants and herbivores introduces complex outcomes beyond traditional ecological models.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Theoretical Ecology
Background:
- Classical ecological models predict nutrient enrichment impacts on food webs.
- Evolutionary dynamics are often excluded from these predictions.
- Understanding these dynamics is crucial for accurate ecological forecasting.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how evolutionary dynamics alter predictions of nutrient enrichment in a plant-herbivore food chain.
- To compare models with no evolution, herbivore evolution only, plant evolution only, and coevolution.
- To identify the role of evolutionary constraints in shaping food web responses.
Main Methods:
- Comparative modeling of a nutrient-plant-herbivore food chain.
- Inclusion of evolutionary dynamics for herbivores, plants, or both.
- Analysis of biomass changes under nutrient enrichment across different evolutionary scenarios.
Main Results:
- Herbivore evolution alone mirrored non-evolutionary model predictions.
- Plant evolution alone led to increased biomass across all trophic levels.
- Plant-herbivore coevolution yielded diverse responses, with outcomes dependent on trade-offs.
Conclusions:
- Evolutionary dynamics, particularly coevolution, critically influence food web responses to nutrient enrichment.
- Trade-offs in evolving traits are key determinants of community-level outcomes.
- Experimental data on phenotypic traits and their interaction costs are needed.