Land use is a stronger determinant of ecological network complexity than the number of trophic levels.

ABSTRACT: Land modification causes biodiversity loss and ecosystem modification. Despite many studies on the impacts of this factor, there is little empirical evidence on how it affects the interaction networks of plants, herbivores and their natural enemies; likewise, there is little evidence on how those networks change due to differences in the complexity of the communities they comprise. We analyzed the effects of land use and number of trophic levels on the interaction networks of exotic legume species and their associated arthropods. We collected seedpods from five exotic legume species (one of them invasive) in four land use types (urbanization, roadside, L. leucocephala plantation, wooded pasture) on Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos, and obtained all arthropods that emerged from the seeds.

SUBMITTER: Amarillo-Suarez AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10857743 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature