TY - JOUR
T1 - Food Web Assembly at the Landscape Scale
T2 - Using Stable Isotopes to Reveal Changes in Trophic Structure During Succession
AU - Schrama, Maarten
AU - Jouta, Jeltje
AU - Berg, Matty P.
AU - Olff, Han
PY - 2013/6/1
Y1 - 2013/6/1
N2 - Food webs are increasingly evaluated at the landscape scale, accounting for spatial interactions involving different nutrient and energy channels. Also, while long viewed as static, food webs are increasingly seen as dynamic entities that assemble during vegetation succession. The next necessary step is, therefore, to link nutrient flows between ecosystems to local food web assembly processes. In this study, we used a 100-year salt marsh succession in which we investigated the long-term changes in food web organization, especially focusing on the balance between internal versus external nutrient sources. We found that during food web assembly, the importance of internal (terrestrial) nutrient cycling increases at the expense of external (marine) inputs. This change from external to internal nutrient cycling is associated with strong shifts in the basis of energy channels within the food web. In early succession, detritivores are mostly fuelled by marine inputs whereas in later succession they thrive on locally produced plant litter, with consequences for their carnivores. We conclude that this 100 years of food web assembly proceeds by gradual decoupling of terrestrial nutrient cycling from the marine environment, and by associated rearrangements in the herbivore and detritivore energy channels. Food web assembly thus interacts with nutrient and energy flows across ecosystem boundaries.
AB - Food webs are increasingly evaluated at the landscape scale, accounting for spatial interactions involving different nutrient and energy channels. Also, while long viewed as static, food webs are increasingly seen as dynamic entities that assemble during vegetation succession. The next necessary step is, therefore, to link nutrient flows between ecosystems to local food web assembly processes. In this study, we used a 100-year salt marsh succession in which we investigated the long-term changes in food web organization, especially focusing on the balance between internal versus external nutrient sources. We found that during food web assembly, the importance of internal (terrestrial) nutrient cycling increases at the expense of external (marine) inputs. This change from external to internal nutrient cycling is associated with strong shifts in the basis of energy channels within the food web. In early succession, detritivores are mostly fuelled by marine inputs whereas in later succession they thrive on locally produced plant litter, with consequences for their carnivores. We conclude that this 100 years of food web assembly proceeds by gradual decoupling of terrestrial nutrient cycling from the marine environment, and by associated rearrangements in the herbivore and detritivore energy channels. Food web assembly thus interacts with nutrient and energy flows across ecosystem boundaries.
KW - chronosequence
KW - detritivores
KW - ecosystem assembly rules
KW - food web
KW - herbivores
KW - salt marsh
KW - stable isotope analysis
KW - succession
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84877727427&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84877727427&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10021-013-9636-5
DO - 10.1007/s10021-013-9636-5
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84877727427
SN - 1432-9840
VL - 16
SP - 627
EP - 638
JO - Ecosystems
JF - Ecosystems
IS - 4
ER -