Is the diet cyclic phase-dependent in boreal vole populations?
Herbivorous rodents in boreal, alpine and arctic ecosystems are renowned for their multi-annual population cycles. Researchers have hypothesised that these cycles may result from herbivore–plant interactions in various ways. For instance, if the biomass of preferred food plants is reduced after a pe...
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Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10037/33422 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.11227 |
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ftunivtroemsoe:oai:munin.uit.no:10037/33422 2024-05-19T07:33:14+00:00 Is the diet cyclic phase-dependent in boreal vole populations? Neby, Magne Ims, Rolf Anker Kamenova, Stefaniya Kamenova Devineau, Olivier Soininen, Eeva Marjatta 2024-04-17 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/33422 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.11227 eng eng Wiley Ecology and Evolution info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/ProjectNumber/EU/An advanced model of 21st century Arctic change/CHARTER/ Neby, M., Ims, R.A., Kamenova, S.K., Devineau, O., Soininen, E.M. Is the diet cyclic phase-dependent in boreal vole populations?. Ecology and Evolution. 2024;14(4) FRIDAID 2262672 doi:10.1002/ece3.11227 2045-7758 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/33422 Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) openAccess Copyright 2024 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 Journal article Tidsskriftartikkel Peer reviewed publishedVersion 2024 ftunivtroemsoe https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.11227 2024-04-23T23:32:14Z Herbivorous rodents in boreal, alpine and arctic ecosystems are renowned for their multi-annual population cycles. Researchers have hypothesised that these cycles may result from herbivore–plant interactions in various ways. For instance, if the biomass of preferred food plants is reduced after a peak phase of a cycle, rodent diets can be expected to become dominated by less preferred food plants, leading the population to a crash. It could also be expected that the taxonomic diversity of rodent diets in creases from the peak to the crash phase of a cycle. The present study is the first to use DNA metabarcoding to quantify the diets of two functionally important boreal rodent species (bank vole and tundra vole) to assess whether their diet changed sys tematically in the expected cyclic phase-dependent manner. We found the taxonomic diet spectrum broad in both vole species but with little interspecific overlap. There was no evidence of systematic shifts in diet diversity metrics between the phases of the population cycle in either species. While both species' diet composition changed moderately between cycle phases and seasons, these changes were small compared to other sources of diet variation—especially differences between individuals. Thus, the variation in diet that could be attributed to cyclic phases is marginal relative to the overall diet flexibility. Based on general consumer-resource theory, we suggest that the broad diets with little interspecific overlap render it unlikely that herbivore–plant interactions generate their synchronous population cycles. We propose that deter mining dietary niche width should be the first step in scientific inquiries about the role of herbivore–plant interactions in cyclic vole populations. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Arctic Tundra University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive Ecology and Evolution 14 4 |
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Open Polar |
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University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive |
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ftunivtroemsoe |
language |
English |
description |
Herbivorous rodents in boreal, alpine and arctic ecosystems are renowned for their multi-annual population cycles. Researchers have hypothesised that these cycles may result from herbivore–plant interactions in various ways. For instance, if the biomass of preferred food plants is reduced after a peak phase of a cycle, rodent diets can be expected to become dominated by less preferred food plants, leading the population to a crash. It could also be expected that the taxonomic diversity of rodent diets in creases from the peak to the crash phase of a cycle. The present study is the first to use DNA metabarcoding to quantify the diets of two functionally important boreal rodent species (bank vole and tundra vole) to assess whether their diet changed sys tematically in the expected cyclic phase-dependent manner. We found the taxonomic diet spectrum broad in both vole species but with little interspecific overlap. There was no evidence of systematic shifts in diet diversity metrics between the phases of the population cycle in either species. While both species' diet composition changed moderately between cycle phases and seasons, these changes were small compared to other sources of diet variation—especially differences between individuals. Thus, the variation in diet that could be attributed to cyclic phases is marginal relative to the overall diet flexibility. Based on general consumer-resource theory, we suggest that the broad diets with little interspecific overlap render it unlikely that herbivore–plant interactions generate their synchronous population cycles. We propose that deter mining dietary niche width should be the first step in scientific inquiries about the role of herbivore–plant interactions in cyclic vole populations. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Neby, Magne Ims, Rolf Anker Kamenova, Stefaniya Kamenova Devineau, Olivier Soininen, Eeva Marjatta |
spellingShingle |
Neby, Magne Ims, Rolf Anker Kamenova, Stefaniya Kamenova Devineau, Olivier Soininen, Eeva Marjatta Is the diet cyclic phase-dependent in boreal vole populations? |
author_facet |
Neby, Magne Ims, Rolf Anker Kamenova, Stefaniya Kamenova Devineau, Olivier Soininen, Eeva Marjatta |
author_sort |
Neby, Magne |
title |
Is the diet cyclic phase-dependent in boreal vole populations? |
title_short |
Is the diet cyclic phase-dependent in boreal vole populations? |
title_full |
Is the diet cyclic phase-dependent in boreal vole populations? |
title_fullStr |
Is the diet cyclic phase-dependent in boreal vole populations? |
title_full_unstemmed |
Is the diet cyclic phase-dependent in boreal vole populations? |
title_sort |
is the diet cyclic phase-dependent in boreal vole populations? |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2024 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/10037/33422 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.11227 |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Tundra |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Tundra |
op_relation |
Ecology and Evolution info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/ProjectNumber/EU/An advanced model of 21st century Arctic change/CHARTER/ Neby, M., Ims, R.A., Kamenova, S.K., Devineau, O., Soininen, E.M. Is the diet cyclic phase-dependent in boreal vole populations?. Ecology and Evolution. 2024;14(4) FRIDAID 2262672 doi:10.1002/ece3.11227 2045-7758 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/33422 |
op_rights |
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) openAccess Copyright 2024 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.11227 |
container_title |
Ecology and Evolution |
container_volume |
14 |
container_issue |
4 |
_version_ |
1799471319761289216 |