Warming and resource availability shift food web structure and metabolism

Climate change disrupts ecological systems in many ways. Many documented responses depend on species' life histories, contributing to the view that climate change effects are important but difficult to characterize generally. However, systematic variation in metabolic effects of temperature acr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS biology 2009-08, Vol.7 (8), p.e1000178
Main Authors: O'Connor, Mary I, Piehler, Michael F, Leech, Dina M, Anton, Andrea, Bruno, John F
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Animals
Biomass
Chlorophyll
Climate change
Confidence intervals
Ecology
Ecology/Community Ecology and Biodiversity
Ecology/Global Change Ecology
Ecology/Marine and Freshwater Ecology
Energy Metabolism
Environmental aspects
Food Chain
Food chains
Food chains (Ecology)
Forecasts and trends
Global warming
Greenhouse Effect
Marine resources
Metabolism
Photosynthesis
Physiological aspects
Structure
Supply and demand
Taxonomy
Temperature
Water shortages
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Summary:Climate change disrupts ecological systems in many ways. Many documented responses depend on species' life histories, contributing to the view that climate change effects are important but difficult to characterize generally. However, systematic variation in metabolic effects of temperature across trophic levels suggests that warming may lead to predictable shifts in food web structure and productivity. We experimentally tested the effects of warming on food web structure and productivity under two resource supply scenarios. Consistent with predictions based on universal metabolic responses to temperature, we found that warming strengthened consumer control of primary production when resources were augmented. Warming shifted food web structure and reduced total biomass despite increases in primary productivity in a marine food web. In contrast, at lower resource levels, food web production was constrained at all temperatures. These results demonstrate that small temperature changes could dramatically shift food web dynamics and provide a general, species-independent mechanism for ecological response to environmental temperature change.
ISSN:1545-7885
1544-9173
1545-7885
DOI:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000178