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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Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
Other Authors: | , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
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Wiley
2016
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Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10138/162256 |
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ftunivhelsihelda:oai:helda.helsinki.fi:10138/162256 |
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Open Polar |
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HELDA – University of Helsinki Open Repository |
op_collection_id |
ftunivhelsihelda |
language |
English |
topic |
Calidris DNA barcoding generalism Greenland Hymenoptera molecular diet analysis Pardosa Plectrophenax specialism Xysticus MUTUALISTIC NETWORKS APPARENT COMPETITION HOST-SPECIFICITY POLLINATION NETWORKS HERBIVOROUS INSECTS MOLECULAR-DETECTION TROPICAL FOREST GLOBAL PATTERNS BEAR ISLAND DIVERSITY 1181 Ecology evolutionary biology |
spellingShingle |
Calidris DNA barcoding generalism Greenland Hymenoptera molecular diet analysis Pardosa Plectrophenax specialism Xysticus MUTUALISTIC NETWORKS APPARENT COMPETITION HOST-SPECIFICITY POLLINATION NETWORKS HERBIVOROUS INSECTS MOLECULAR-DETECTION TROPICAL FOREST GLOBAL PATTERNS BEAR ISLAND DIVERSITY 1181 Ecology evolutionary biology Wirta, Helena K. Vesterinen, Eero J. Hamback, 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 MUTUALISTIC NETWORKS APPARENT COMPETITION HOST-SPECIFICITY POLLINATION NETWORKS HERBIVOROUS INSECTS MOLECULAR-DETECTION TROPICAL FOREST GLOBAL PATTERNS BEAR ISLAND DIVERSITY 1181 Ecology evolutionary biology |
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. Peer reviewed |
author2 |
Department of Agricultural Sciences Spatial Foodweb Ecology Group |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Wirta, Helena K. Vesterinen, Eero J. Hamback, Peter A. Weingartner, Elisabeth Rasmussen, Claus Reneerkens, Jeroen Schmidt, Niels M. Gilg, Olivier Roslin, Tomas |
author_facet |
Wirta, Helena K. Vesterinen, Eero J. Hamback, 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 |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10138/162256 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-67.250,-67.250,-68.151,-68.151) |
geographic |
Arctic Bear Island Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Bear Island Greenland |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Bear Island Climate change Greenland |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Bear Island Climate change Greenland |
op_relation |
10.1002/ece3.1647 Funding was received from INTERACT (projects QUANTIC and INTERPRED) under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (to HW, TR and JR), from the University of Helsinki (grant number 788/51/2010 to TR), from the Academy of Finland (grant number 1276909 to TR), from Carl Tryggers Foundation for Scientific Research (to PH), from Kone foundation (to HW), from World Wildlife Fund-the Netherlands (to JR), from the French Polar Institute - IPEV (program "Interactions" to OG), from Turku University Foundation, from Emil Aaltonen foundation (to EJV), from Carlsbergfondet (to CR) and from Aage V. Jensen Charity foundation (to NMS). Wirta , H K , Vesterinen , E J , Hamback , 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 ORCID: /0000-0002-2957-4791/work/29637965 ORCID: /0000-0002-4667-2166/work/61593262 84941171690 8fa4b8dc-0015-4237-a198-e31ae9b375e9 http://hdl.handle.net/10138/162256 000361010200027 |
op_rights |
cc_by openAccess info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
container_title |
Ecology and Evolution |
container_volume |
5 |
container_issue |
17 |
container_start_page |
3842 |
op_container_end_page |
3856 |
_version_ |
1787421573604442112 |
spelling |
ftunivhelsihelda:oai:helda.helsinki.fi:10138/162256 2024-01-07T09:40:47+01:00 Exposing the structure of an Arctic food web Wirta, Helena K. Vesterinen, Eero J. Hamback, Peter A. Weingartner, Elisabeth Rasmussen, Claus Reneerkens, Jeroen Schmidt, Niels M. Gilg, Olivier Roslin, Tomas Department of Agricultural Sciences Spatial Foodweb Ecology Group 2016-05-17T12:50:01Z 15 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/10138/162256 eng eng Wiley 10.1002/ece3.1647 Funding was received from INTERACT (projects QUANTIC and INTERPRED) under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (to HW, TR and JR), from the University of Helsinki (grant number 788/51/2010 to TR), from the Academy of Finland (grant number 1276909 to TR), from Carl Tryggers Foundation for Scientific Research (to PH), from Kone foundation (to HW), from World Wildlife Fund-the Netherlands (to JR), from the French Polar Institute - IPEV (program "Interactions" to OG), from Turku University Foundation, from Emil Aaltonen foundation (to EJV), from Carlsbergfondet (to CR) and from Aage V. Jensen Charity foundation (to NMS). Wirta , H K , Vesterinen , E J , Hamback , 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 ORCID: /0000-0002-2957-4791/work/29637965 ORCID: /0000-0002-4667-2166/work/61593262 84941171690 8fa4b8dc-0015-4237-a198-e31ae9b375e9 http://hdl.handle.net/10138/162256 000361010200027 cc_by openAccess info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Calidris DNA barcoding generalism Greenland Hymenoptera molecular diet analysis Pardosa Plectrophenax specialism Xysticus MUTUALISTIC NETWORKS APPARENT COMPETITION HOST-SPECIFICITY POLLINATION NETWORKS HERBIVOROUS INSECTS MOLECULAR-DETECTION TROPICAL FOREST GLOBAL PATTERNS BEAR ISLAND DIVERSITY 1181 Ecology evolutionary biology Article publishedVersion 2016 ftunivhelsihelda 2023-12-14T00:02:34Z 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. Peer reviewed Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Arctic Bear Island Climate change Greenland HELDA – University of Helsinki Open Repository Arctic Bear Island ENVELOPE(-67.250,-67.250,-68.151,-68.151) Greenland Ecology and Evolution 5 17 3842 3856 |