中国科学院机构知识库网格
Chinese Academy of Sciences Institutional Repositories Grid
The brown-world role of insectivores: Frogs reduce plant growth by suppressing detritivores in an alpine meadow

文献类型:期刊论文

作者Wu, Xinwei ; Zhang, Changbing ; Griffin, John N. ; Sun, Shucun
刊名BASIC AND APPLIED ECOLOGY
出版日期2014
卷号15期号:1页码:66-74
关键词Density-mediated indirect interactions Detritus food webs Ecosystem functioning Tibetan Plateau Top-down control Trophic cascade
产权排序4
通讯作者Sun, SC (reprint author), Nanjing Univ, Dept Biol, Nanjing 210093, Jiangsu, Peoples R China.
合作状况其它
英文摘要Predators of plant-suppressing herbivores have long been known to indirectly enhance plant biomass, while more recent work has revealed that predators of plant-facilitating detritivores can have the opposite effect on plant biomass. Generalist predators, such as frogs that typically facilitate plant growth in green food webs, may potentially negatively affect plant growth by consuming prey from brown food webs. In a marshy Tibetan alpine meadow, we tested the hypothesis that the locally abundant frog Rana kukunoris could negatively affect plant growth through suppression of dung-decomposing detritivores that promote plant growth by enhancing nutrient recycling. We conducted a factorial experiment (presence/absence of predators x presence/absence of dung) using replicate field enclosures over a growing season. Where dung was present, frogs significantly reduced the number of dung-feeding beetles and dung-feeding flies (including fly eggs and maggots) per dung pat, thereby decreasing dung mass loss and, indirectly, aboveground plant biomass (by 22%) surrounding dung pats. Where dung was absent, frogs did not affect plant biomass. Moreover, the number of dung beetles was positively associated with dung mass loss and soil soluble N concentration (but not total N concentrations), which in turn positively correlated with aboveground plant biomass. These results indicate that a generalist predator species standing in green food webs may play a contrasting role in brown food webs and indicate that a more nuanced appreciation of the functional role of predators in tri-trophic systems is required to accurately predict their cascading effects. Future studies must assess the relative strength of cascading effects mediated through brown and green channels in order to assess the net cascading effects of generalist predators in natural food webs.
学科主题Ecology
收录类别SCI
语种英语
公开日期2016-02-26
源URL[http://210.75.237.14/handle/351003/26556]  
专题成都生物研究所_生态研究
推荐引用方式
GB/T 7714
Wu, Xinwei,Zhang, Changbing,Griffin, John N.,et al. The brown-world role of insectivores: Frogs reduce plant growth by suppressing detritivores in an alpine meadow[J]. BASIC AND APPLIED ECOLOGY,2014,15(1):66-74.
APA Wu, Xinwei,Zhang, Changbing,Griffin, John N.,&Sun, Shucun.(2014).The brown-world role of insectivores: Frogs reduce plant growth by suppressing detritivores in an alpine meadow.BASIC AND APPLIED ECOLOGY,15(1),66-74.
MLA Wu, Xinwei,et al."The brown-world role of insectivores: Frogs reduce plant growth by suppressing detritivores in an alpine meadow".BASIC AND APPLIED ECOLOGY 15.1(2014):66-74.

入库方式: OAI收割

来源:成都生物研究所

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