Habitat modification mediates the strength of trophic cascades on oak trees
File(s)
Published version
OA Location
Author(s)
Chan, Angela
Banks-Leite, Cristina
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Habitat modification is now a widespread phenomenon, impacting landscape structure, biophysical processes, food webs and biodiversity. These changes have trickle-down effects on trophic cascades: predators often become rarer, increasing prey populations, which then subject plants to higher levels of herbivory. How habitat modification mediates this trophic cascade, however, is poorly understood, and this is particularly true for temperate forests. Here we investigate if the strength of trophic cascades, defined as the magnitude of the effect of bird exclusion on leaf damage, varies along a gradient of increasing habitat modification, from forest interior to forest edge to open habitat, through an experimental manipulation of bird exclusion. We found that habitat modification reduces the number of bird observations, with trophic cascades being three times stronger in the forest interior than edge and open habitats. However, there is no corresponding increase in leaf damage with habitat modification in the presence of birds, suggesting that other taxa or factors may mediate leaf damage in modified habitats. Our findings suggest that even though habitat modification disrupts the functions that birds perform in the ecosystem, overall ecosystem function is not dramatically altered, possibly due to the functional redundancy of birds.
Date Issued
2020-10
Date Acceptance
2020-09-01
Citation
Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation, 2020, 18 (4), pp.313-318
ISSN
2530-0644
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
313
End Page
318
Journal / Book Title
Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation
Volume
18
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
© 2020 Associac ̧ ̃ao Brasileira de Ciˆencia Ecol ́ogica e Conservac ̧ ̃ao. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S253006442030050X?via%3Dihub
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2020-09-28