Warming reverses top-down effects of predators on belowground ecosystem function in Arctic tundra

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Main Authors: Koltz, Amanda M., Classen, Aimée T., Wright, Justin P.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Sciences 2018
• Subjects: PNAS Plus; Arctic; Climate change; Tundra
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6094120/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30038011; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1808754115

Organisms’ responses to climate change can result in altered species interactions, with cascading effects on communities and ecosystems. Understanding these processes is especially relevant in the rapidly warming Arctic, where faster decomposition of stored soil carbon is expected to result in positive carbon feedbacks to the atmosphere. We provide evidence that warmer temperatures alter the cascading effects of wolf spiders, an abundant and widespread predator, on ecosystem functioning. Specifically, we find that warming tends to reverse the effect of high spider densities on fungal-feeding Collembola and ultimately leads to slower decomposition rates. Our work demonstrates that climate change can alter the nature of predator effects on decomposition, resulting in unexpected changes in ecosystem function with potentially important global implications.