Parasites in kelp-forest food webs increase food-chain length, complexity, and specialization, but reduce connectance.

ABSTRACT: We explored whether parasites are important in kelp forests by examining their effects on a high-quality, high-resolution kelp-forest food web. After controlling for generic effects of network size, parasites affected kelp-forest food web structure in some ways consistent with other systems. Parasites increased the trophic span of the web, increasing top predator vulnerability and the longest chain length. Unique links associated with parasites, such as concomitant predation (consumption of parasites along with their hosts by predators) increased the frequency of network motifs involving mutual consumption and decreased niche contiguity of free-living species. However, parasites also affected kelp-forest food web structure in ways not seen in other systems. Kelp-forest parasites are richer

SUBMITTER: Morton DN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9286845 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature