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Predators override rainfall effects on tropical food webs Ospina, Fabiola; Srivastava, Diane; González, Angélica; Sparks, Jed; Realpe, Emilio

Description

Abstract Predators alter ecological communities by inducing changes in prey abundance and phenotypes, including elemental and isotopic composition. Climatic factors are known to often moderate predator effects on prey abundance, but few studies consider the combined effects of climate and predators on prey phenotype. We examined how altered precipitation moderates the effects of predators on the abundance and the chemical composition of prey, as well as the indirect effects on the basal resource: leaf litter coated in biofilm. Using an experiment with an invertebrate food web module from tank bromeliads, we manipulated the presence of an odonate predator under scenarios of 10-fold decreased, ambient, and 3-fold increased precipitation and measured responses of prey and their basal resource. Predators reduced prey abundance while precipitation did not. Both precipitation and predators, either singly or interactively, affected the elemental composition of prey. Predators increased C:N ratios of detritivorous beetles under high precipitation, but reduced the C:N ratio of the basal resource. Precipitation reduced the N content of filter feeding mosquitoes. The observed changes in chemical composition may reflect physiological or developmental responses to stress imposed by both predators and drought. This study demonstrates that the impact of predators and precipitation can vary substantially across a food web, including additive and synergistic effects, and numerical and phenotypic responses.

Item Metadata

Title	Predators override rainfall effects on tropical food webs
Creator	Ospina, Fabiola; Srivastava, Diane; González, Angélica; Sparks, Jed; Realpe, Emilio
Date Issued	2021-05-19
Description	<b>Abstract</b><br/><p style="text-align:start;text-indent:0px;"><span><span style="font-style:normal;"><span><span style="font-weight:normal;"><span style="letter-spacing:normal;"><span><span><span style="white-space:normal;"><span><span><span><span lang="EN-US"><span>Predators alter ecological communities by inducing changes in prey abundance and phenotypes, including elemental and isotopic composition</span></span>. Climatic factors are known to often moderate predator effects on prey abundance, but few studies consider the combined effects of climate and predators on prey phenotype. We examined how altered precipitation moderates the effects of predators on the abundance and the chemical composition of prey, as well as the indirect effects on the basal resource: leaf litter coated in biofilm. Using an experiment with an invertebrate food web module from tank bromeliads, we manipulated the presence of an odonate predator under scenarios of 10-fold decreased, ambient, and 3-fold increased precipitation and measured responses of prey and their basal resource. Predators reduced prey abundance while precipitation did not. Both precipitation and predators, either singly or interactively, affected the elemental composition of prey. Predators increased C:N ratios of detritivorous beetles under high precipitation, but reduced the C:N ratio of the basal resource. Precipitation reduced the N content of filter feeding mosquitoes. The observed changes in chemical composition may reflect physiological or developmental responses to stress imposed by both predators and drought. This study demonstrates that the impact of predators and precipitation can vary substantially across a food web, including additive and synergistic effects, and numerical and phenotypic responses. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
Subject	Other
Type	Dataset
Notes	Dryad version number: 5</p> Version status: submitted</p> Dryad curation status: Published</p> Sharing link: https://datadryad.org/stash/share/gfhpaNcM-M3MCuyB4lL3tfGmQuYgnxKLLmycRjs_-wo</p> Storage size: 113770</p> Visibility: public</p>
Date Available	2021-03-23
Provider	University of British Columbia Library
License	This dataset is made available under a Creative Commons CC0 license with the following additional/modified terms and conditions: CC0 Waiver
DOI	10.14288/1.0397973
URI	https://doi.org/10.5683/SP2/VW22KF
Publisher DOI	https://doi.org/10.5683/SP2/VW22KF; https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.47d7wm3cp
Grant Funding Agency	Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (COLCIENCIAS); Inter-university Training in Continental-scale Ecology*
Rights URI	https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Aggregated Source Repository	Dataverse

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This dataset is made available under a Creative Commons CC0 license with the following additional/modified terms and conditions: CC0 Waiver