Multitrophic diversity effects of network degradation.

ABSTRACT: Predicting the functional consequences of biodiversity loss in realistic, multitrophic communities remains a challenge. No existing biodiversity-ecosystem function study to date has simultaneously incorporated information on species traits, network topology, and extinction across multiple trophic levels, while all three factors are independently understood as critical drivers of post-extinction network structure and function. We fill this gap by comparing the functional consequences of simulated species loss both within (monotrophic) and across (bitrophic) trophic levels, in an ecological interaction network estimated from spatially explicit field data on tropical fecal detritus producer and consumers (mammals and dung beetles). We simulated trait-ordered beetle and mammal extinction separ

SUBMITTER: Nichols E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4979718 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature