How habitat-modifying organisms structure the food web of two coastal ecosystems.

ABSTRACT: The diversity and structure of ecosystems has been found to depend both on trophic interactions in food webs and on other species interactions such as habitat modification and mutualism that form non-trophic interaction networks. However, quantification of the dependencies between these two main interaction networks has remained elusive. In this study, we assessed how habitat-modifying organisms affect basic food web properties by conducting in-depth empirical investigations of two ecosystems: North American temperate fringing marshes and West African tropical seagrass meadows. Results reveal that habitat-modifying species, through non-trophic facilitation rather than their trophic role, enhance species richness across multiple trophic levels, increase the number of interactions per specie

SUBMITTER: van der Zee EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4810843 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature