期刊
ECOLOGY
卷 93, 期 8, 页码 1779-1786出版社
ECOLOGICAL SOC AMER
DOI: 10.1890/11-1497.1
关键词
critical patch size; density-area relationship; food-web module; generalist predator; habitat fragmentation; intraguild predation; mesocosm experiment; mesopredator; metacommunity; patch connectivity; patch size
类别
资金
- National Science Foundation [DEB-07100004]
- BEES graduate program
- Ann G. Wylie graduate fellowship
Because patch size and connectivity may strongly impact the assemblage of species that occur on a patch, the types of food-web interactions that occur among those species may also depend on spatial structure. Here, we identify whether food-web interactions among salt-marsh-inhabiting arthropods vary with patch size and connectivity, and how such changes in trophic structure might feed back to influence the spatial distribution of prey. In a multiyear survey, patch-restricted predators exhibited steeper occupancy-patch-size relationships than herbivores, and species' critical patch sizes were correlated with overall rarity. As a result, the presence of food-web modules depended strongly on patch size: large and well-connected patches supported complex food-web modules, but only the simplest modules involving the most abundant species were found on small patches. Habitat-generalist spiders dominated on small patches, and predation pressure from such species may contribute to the observed lower densities of mesopredators on small patches. Overall, patch size and connectivity influenced the types of modules present on a patch through differential loss of rare, patch-restricted predators, but predation by generalist predators may be a key mechanism influencing the spatial structure of certain prey species.
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