Exposing the structure of an Arctic food web.

15 pages International audience 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...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology and Evolution
Main Authors: Wirta, Helena K., Vesterinen, Eero J., Hambäck, Peter A., Weingartner, Elisabeth, Rasmussen, Claus, Reneerkens, Jeroen, Schmidt, Niels M., Gilg, Olivier, Roslin, Tomas
Other Authors: Department of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Biology, University of Turku, Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences, Stockholm University, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University Aarhus, Aarhus University Aarhus -Arctic Research Centre, Conservation Ecology Group, University of Groningen Groningen -Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, Groupe de recherche en écologie arctique (GREA), Biogéosciences UMR 6282 (BGS), Université de Bourgogne (UB)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Funding by INTERACT (projects QUANTIC and INTERPRED) under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme, by the University of Helsinki (grant number 788/51/2010), by the Academy of Finland (grant number 1276909), by Carl Tryggers Foundation for Scientific Research, by Kone Foundation, by World Wildlife Fund – the Netherlands, by the French Polar Institute – IPEV (program “Interactions”), by Turku University Foundation, by Emil Aaltonen Foundation, by Carlsbergfondet, and by Aage V. JensenCharity Foundation.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hal.science/hal-01198620
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1647
id ftunivbourgogne:oai:HAL:hal-01198620v1
record_format openpolar
institution Open Polar
collection Université de Bourgogne (UB): HAL
op_collection_id ftunivbourgogne
language English
topic Calidris
DNA barcoding
generalism
Greenland
Hymenoptera
molecular diet analysis
Pardosa
Plectrophenax
specialism
Xysticus
[SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology
[SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology
environment/Ecosystems
spellingShingle Calidris
DNA barcoding
generalism
Greenland
Hymenoptera
molecular diet analysis
Pardosa
Plectrophenax
specialism
Xysticus
[SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology
[SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology
environment/Ecosystems
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.
topic_facet Calidris
DNA barcoding
generalism
Greenland
Hymenoptera
molecular diet analysis
Pardosa
Plectrophenax
specialism
Xysticus
[SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology
[SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology
environment/Ecosystems
description 15 pages International audience 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.
author2 Department of Agricultural Sciences
Department of Biology
University of Turku
Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences
Stockholm University
Department of Bioscience
Aarhus University Aarhus
Aarhus University Aarhus -Arctic Research Centre
Conservation Ecology Group
University of Groningen Groningen -Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences
Groupe de recherche en écologie arctique (GREA)
Biogéosciences UMR 6282 (BGS)
Université de Bourgogne (UB)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Funding by INTERACT (projects QUANTIC and INTERPRED) under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme, by the University of Helsinki (grant number 788/51/2010), by the Academy of Finland (grant number 1276909), by Carl Tryggers Foundation for Scientific Research, by Kone Foundation, by World Wildlife Fund – the Netherlands, by the French Polar Institute – IPEV (program “Interactions”), by Turku University Foundation, by Emil Aaltonen Foundation, by Carlsbergfondet, and by Aage V. JensenCharity Foundation.
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
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.
publisher HAL CCSD
publishDate 2015
url https://hal.science/hal-01198620
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1647
geographic Arctic
Greenland
geographic_facet Arctic
Greenland
genre Arctic
Climate change
Greenland
genre_facet Arctic
Climate change
Greenland
op_source EISSN: 2045-7758
Ecology and Evolution
https://hal.science/hal-01198620
Ecology and Evolution, 2015, 5 (17), pp.3842-56. ⟨10.1002/ece3.1647⟩
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.1647/abstract
op_relation info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1002/ece3.1647
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pmid/26380710
hal-01198620
https://hal.science/hal-01198620
doi:10.1002/ece3.1647
PUBMED: 26380710
PUBMEDCENTRAL: PMC4567885
op_doi https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.164710.1002/ece3.1647/abstract
container_title Ecology and Evolution
container_volume 5
container_issue 17
container_start_page 3842
op_container_end_page 3856
_version_ 1787421781092466688
spelling ftunivbourgogne:oai:HAL:hal-01198620v1 2024-01-07T09:41:00+01:00 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 Department of Agricultural Sciences Department of Biology University of Turku Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences Stockholm University Department of Bioscience Aarhus University Aarhus Aarhus University Aarhus -Arctic Research Centre Conservation Ecology Group University of Groningen Groningen -Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences Groupe de recherche en écologie arctique (GREA) Biogéosciences UMR 6282 (BGS) Université de Bourgogne (UB)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Funding by INTERACT (projects QUANTIC and INTERPRED) under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme, by the University of Helsinki (grant number 788/51/2010), by the Academy of Finland (grant number 1276909), by Carl Tryggers Foundation for Scientific Research, by Kone Foundation, by World Wildlife Fund – the Netherlands, by the French Polar Institute – IPEV (program “Interactions”), by Turku University Foundation, by Emil Aaltonen Foundation, by Carlsbergfondet, and by Aage V. JensenCharity Foundation. 2015-08-31 https://hal.science/hal-01198620 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1647 en eng HAL CCSD Wiley Open Access info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1002/ece3.1647 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pmid/26380710 hal-01198620 https://hal.science/hal-01198620 doi:10.1002/ece3.1647 PUBMED: 26380710 PUBMEDCENTRAL: PMC4567885 EISSN: 2045-7758 Ecology and Evolution https://hal.science/hal-01198620 Ecology and Evolution, 2015, 5 (17), pp.3842-56. ⟨10.1002/ece3.1647⟩ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.1647/abstract Calidris DNA barcoding generalism Greenland Hymenoptera molecular diet analysis Pardosa Plectrophenax specialism Xysticus [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology [SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology environment/Ecosystems info:eu-repo/semantics/article Journal articles 2015 ftunivbourgogne https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.164710.1002/ece3.1647/abstract 2023-12-12T23:45:18Z 15 pages International audience 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 Greenland Université de Bourgogne (UB): HAL Arctic Greenland Ecology and Evolution 5 17 3842 3856