Publication Date:
2008-02-16
Description:
The way predators control their prey populations is determined by the interplay between predator hunting mode and prey antipredator behavior. It is uncertain, however, how the effects of such interplay control ecosystem function. A 3-year experiment in grassland mesocosms revealed that actively hunting spiders reduced plant species diversity and enhanced aboveground net primary production and nitrogen mineralization rate, whereas sit-and-wait ambush spiders had opposite effects. These effects arise from the different responses to the two different predators by their grasshopper prey-the dominant herbivore species that controls plant species composition and accordingly ecosystem functioning. Predator hunting mode is thus a key functional trait that can help to explain variation in the nature of top-down control of ecosystems.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Schmitz, Oswald J -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2008 Feb 15;319(5865):952-4. doi: 10.1126/science.1152355.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA. oswald.schmitz@yale.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18276890" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Behavior, Animal
;
Biodiversity
;
Connecticut
;
*Ecosystem
;
Feeding Behavior
;
Food Chain
;
*Grasshoppers
;
Nitrogen/analysis
;
Photosynthesis
;
*Plants/metabolism
;
Poaceae/metabolism
;
*Predatory Behavior
;
Random Allocation
;
Solidago/metabolism
;
*Spiders
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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