Exposing the structure of an arctic food web
How food webs are structured has major implications for their stability and dynamics. While poorly studied to date, arctic food webs are commonly assumed to be simple in structure, with few links per species. If this is the case, then different parts of the web may be weakly connected to each other,...
Published in: | Ecology and Evolution |
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2015
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Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/11370/b12d856f-ddc0-4b30-b0b0-0b207e7cbbd4 https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/b12d856f-ddc0-4b30-b0b0-0b207e7cbbd4 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1647 https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/31027210/Wirta_et_al_2015_Exposing_the_structure_of_an_Arctic_food_web_Ecol_Evol.pdf |
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ftunigroningenpu:oai:pure.rug.nl:publications/b12d856f-ddc0-4b30-b0b0-0b207e7cbbd4 2024-09-15T17:50:54+00:00 Exposing the structure of an arctic food web Wirta, Helena K Vesterinen, Eero J Hambäck, Peter A. Weingartner, Elisabeth Rasmussen, Claus Reneerkens, Jeroen Schmidt, Niels M Gilg, Olivier Roslin, Tomas 2015 application/pdf https://hdl.handle.net/11370/b12d856f-ddc0-4b30-b0b0-0b207e7cbbd4 https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/b12d856f-ddc0-4b30-b0b0-0b207e7cbbd4 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1647 https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/31027210/Wirta_et_al_2015_Exposing_the_structure_of_an_Arctic_food_web_Ecol_Evol.pdf eng eng https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/b12d856f-ddc0-4b30-b0b0-0b207e7cbbd4 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Wirta , H K , Vesterinen , E J , Hambäck , P A , Weingartner , E , Rasmussen , C , Reneerkens , J , Schmidt , N M , Gilg , O & Roslin , T 2015 , ' Exposing the structure of an arctic food web ' , Ecology and Evolution , vol. 5 , no. 17 , pp. 3842-3856 . https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1647 article 2015 ftunigroningenpu https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1647 2024-06-24T15:51:16Z How food webs are structured has major implications for their stability and dynamics. While poorly studied to date, arctic food webs are commonly assumed to be simple in structure, with few links per species. If this is the case, then different parts of the web may be weakly connected to each other, with populations and species united by only a low number of links. We provide the first highly resolved description of trophic link structure for a large part of a high-arctic food web. For this purpose, we apply a combination of recent techniques to describing the links between three predator guilds (insectivorous birds, spiders, and lepidopteran parasitoids) and their two dominant prey orders (Diptera and Lepidoptera). The resultant web shows a dense link structure and no compartmentalization or modularity across the three predator guilds. Thus, both individual predators and predator guilds tap heavily into the prey community of each other, offering versatile scope for indirect interactions across different parts of the web. The current description of a first but single arctic web may serve as a benchmark toward which to gauge future webs resolved by similar techniques. Targeting an unusual breadth of predator guilds, and relying on techniques with a high resolution, it suggests that species in this web are closely connected. Thus, our findings call for similar explorations of link structure across multiple guilds in both arctic and other webs. From an applied perspective, our description of an arctic web suggests new avenues for understanding how arctic food webs are built and function and of how they respond to current climate change. It suggests that to comprehend the community- level consequences of rapid arctic warming, we should turn from analyses of populations, population pairs, and isolated predator–prey interactions to considering the full set of interacting species. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Climate change University of Groningen research database Ecology and Evolution 5 17 3842 3856 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Groningen research database |
op_collection_id |
ftunigroningenpu |
language |
English |
description |
How food webs are structured has major implications for their stability and dynamics. While poorly studied to date, arctic food webs are commonly assumed to be simple in structure, with few links per species. If this is the case, then different parts of the web may be weakly connected to each other, with populations and species united by only a low number of links. We provide the first highly resolved description of trophic link structure for a large part of a high-arctic food web. For this purpose, we apply a combination of recent techniques to describing the links between three predator guilds (insectivorous birds, spiders, and lepidopteran parasitoids) and their two dominant prey orders (Diptera and Lepidoptera). The resultant web shows a dense link structure and no compartmentalization or modularity across the three predator guilds. Thus, both individual predators and predator guilds tap heavily into the prey community of each other, offering versatile scope for indirect interactions across different parts of the web. The current description of a first but single arctic web may serve as a benchmark toward which to gauge future webs resolved by similar techniques. Targeting an unusual breadth of predator guilds, and relying on techniques with a high resolution, it suggests that species in this web are closely connected. Thus, our findings call for similar explorations of link structure across multiple guilds in both arctic and other webs. From an applied perspective, our description of an arctic web suggests new avenues for understanding how arctic food webs are built and function and of how they respond to current climate change. It suggests that to comprehend the community- level consequences of rapid arctic warming, we should turn from analyses of populations, population pairs, and isolated predator–prey interactions to considering the full set of interacting species. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Wirta, Helena K Vesterinen, Eero J Hambäck, Peter A. Weingartner, Elisabeth Rasmussen, Claus Reneerkens, Jeroen Schmidt, Niels M Gilg, Olivier Roslin, Tomas |
spellingShingle |
Wirta, Helena K Vesterinen, Eero J Hambäck, Peter A. Weingartner, Elisabeth Rasmussen, Claus Reneerkens, Jeroen Schmidt, Niels M Gilg, Olivier Roslin, Tomas Exposing the structure of an arctic food web |
author_facet |
Wirta, Helena K Vesterinen, Eero J Hambäck, Peter A. Weingartner, Elisabeth Rasmussen, Claus Reneerkens, Jeroen Schmidt, Niels M Gilg, Olivier Roslin, Tomas |
author_sort |
Wirta, Helena K |
title |
Exposing the structure of an arctic food web |
title_short |
Exposing the structure of an arctic food web |
title_full |
Exposing the structure of an arctic food web |
title_fullStr |
Exposing the structure of an arctic food web |
title_full_unstemmed |
Exposing the structure of an arctic food web |
title_sort |
exposing the structure of an arctic food web |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/11370/b12d856f-ddc0-4b30-b0b0-0b207e7cbbd4 https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/b12d856f-ddc0-4b30-b0b0-0b207e7cbbd4 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1647 https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/31027210/Wirta_et_al_2015_Exposing_the_structure_of_an_Arctic_food_web_Ecol_Evol.pdf |
genre |
Arctic Climate change |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change |
op_source |
Wirta , H K , Vesterinen , E J , Hambäck , P A , Weingartner , E , Rasmussen , C , Reneerkens , J , Schmidt , N M , Gilg , O & Roslin , T 2015 , ' Exposing the structure of an arctic food web ' , Ecology and Evolution , vol. 5 , no. 17 , pp. 3842-3856 . https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1647 |
op_relation |
https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/b12d856f-ddc0-4b30-b0b0-0b207e7cbbd4 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1647 |
container_title |
Ecology and Evolution |
container_volume |
5 |
container_issue |
17 |
container_start_page |
3842 |
op_container_end_page |
3856 |
_version_ |
1810292709205737472 |