Journal
ECOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 14, Issue 7, Pages 661-669Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01633.x
Keywords
Giving up density; herbivory; indirect effects; predators; seed predation; small mammals; trait-mediated indirect effects; trophic cascade
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Funding
- National Research Initiative of the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service [2005-35101-16040]
- National Science Foundation [DEB-0915409]
- McIntire-Stennis
- U.S. Bureau of Land Management
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The strength of trophic cascades in terrestrial habitats has been the subject of considerable interest and debate. We conducted an 8-year experiment to determine how exclusion of vertebrate predators, ungulates alone (to control for ungulate exclusion from predator exclusion plots) or none of these animals influenced how strongly a three-species assemblage of rodent consumers affected plant productivity. We also examined whether predator exclusion influenced the magnitude of post-dispersal seed predation by mice. Both ungulates and rodents had strong direct effects on graminoid biomass. However, rodent impacts on plant biomass did not differ across plots with or without predators and/or ungulates. Deer mice removed more seeds from seed depots on predator exclusion plots, suggesting trait-mediated indirect effects of predators, but this short-term behavioural response did not translate into longer-term impacts on seed survival. These results suggest that vertebrate predators do not fundamentally influence primary production or seed survival in our system.
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