Nichols_et_al_2016.pdf (200.98 kB)
Multitrophic diversity effects of network degradation
journal contribution
posted on 2023-07-26, 13:51 authored by Elizabeth Nichols, Carlos A. Peres, Joseph E. Hawes, Shahid NaeemPredicting the functional consequences of biodiversity loss in realistic, multitrophic communities remains a challenge. No existing biodiversity-ecosystem function study to date has simultaneously incorporated information on species traits, network topology, and extinction across multiple trophic levels, while all three factors are independently understood as critical drivers of post-extinction network structure and function. We fill this gap by comparing the functional consequences of simulated species loss both within (monotrophic) and across (bitrophic) trophic levels, in an ecological interaction network estimated from spatially explicit field data on tropical fecal detritus producer and consumers (mammals and dung beetles). We simulated trait-ordered beetle and mammal extinction separately (monotrophic extinction) and the coextinction of beetles following mammal loss (bitrophic extinction), according to network structure. We also compared the diversity effects of bitrophic extinction models using a standard monotrophic function (the daily production or consumption of fecal detritus) and a unique bitrophic functional metric (the proportion of daily detritus production that is consumed). We found similar mono- and bitrophic diversity effects, regardless of which species traits were used to drive extinctions, yet divergent predictions when different measures of function were used. The inclusion of information on network structure had little apparent effect on the qualitative relationship between diversity and function. These results contribute to our growing understanding of the functional consequences of biodiversity from real systems and underscore the importance of species traits and realistic functional metrics to assessments of the ecosystem impacts of network degradation through species loss.
History
Refereed
- Yes
Volume
6Issue number
14Page range
4936-4946Publication title
Ecology and EvolutionISSN
2045-7758External DOI
Publisher
WileyFile version
- Published version
Language
- eng
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Legacy posted date
2016-06-30Legacy creation date
2016-06-27Legacy Faculty/School/Department
ARCHIVED Faculty of Science & Technology (until September 2018)Usage metrics
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