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Top predators govern multitrophic diversity effects in tritrophic food webs
Ruben Ceulemans1, Christian Guill1, Ursula Gaedke1
1Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, University of Potsdam, Am Neuen Palais 10, Potsdam, 14469, Germany.
Ecology
|May 3, 2021
Summary
Functional diversity significantly impacts ecosystem functioning, but relationships are complex across trophic levels. High diversity throughout the food web is crucial for efficient nutrient use and biomass transfer, especially for top predators.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Ecosystem Dynamics
- Food Web Interactions
Background:
- Functional diversity is known to influence ecosystem functioning.
- Generalizing the relationship between multitrophic functional diversity and ecosystem functioning is challenging due to contextuality.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of functional diversity across different trophic levels in structured food webs.
- To identify generalizable patterns in ecosystem functioning irrespective of specific parameterizations.
Main Methods:
- Simulated 128,000 parameter combinations across differently structured tritrophic food webs.
- Analyzed data using a random forest model to identify complex patterns and parameter influence.
- Examined outcomes across 200 random initial conditions for each parameter combination.
Main Results:
- Bottom-up and top-down effects intricately link functional diversity across trophic levels.
- High diversity across the entire food web is essential for efficient nutrient exploitation and biomass transfer.
- Top predator diversity critically influences biomass and temporal variability at all trophic levels.
Conclusions:
- Ecosystem functioning is influenced by diversity across all trophic levels, not in isolation.
- Extrapolating findings from simple food webs to complex natural systems is hindered by interconnected diversity effects.
- Synergistic interactions from high multitrophic diversity are key to robust ecosystem functioning and productivity.
Keywords:
food-web efficiencyfunctional diversitymachine learningnutrient exploitationproductionrandom foresttemporal variabilitytop predatortrait diversityMore Related Videos
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