Plant and herbivorous insect communities respond in complex ways to rainfall manipulation in an oak savanna grassland

Abstract

Changes in precipitation due to climate change will have consequences for plant and herbivorous insect communities alike. Multiple hypotheses explain how changes in plant diversity and productivity can lead to changes in herbivore community composition. Yet as rainfall patterns change, the bottom‐up effects on the relationships between plant and herbivore communities are less well understood. Using a long‐term rainfall manipulation experiment in a remnant patch of Garry oak (Quercus garryana) savanna, we examined how plant diversity and productivity have responded to variation in soil moisture over 6 years. This highly endangered ecosystem is predicted to experience significantly wetter springs and drier summers by 2080. We also investigated plant‐mediated, indirect effects of manipulated rainfall on herbivore diversity and abundance, drawing on multiple hypotheses describing the relationships between plant and herbivore communities. For example, the more individuals hypothesis predicts that increased plant productivity results in increased herbivore abundance which, in turn, results in increased herbivore diversity. We found that plant productivity was influenced by soil moisture, but the direction and magnitude of the response varied across years, and found no support for plant diversity influencing productivity. We also found that the cover and productivity of grasses increased significantly with increasing precipitation. In addition to a direct negative effect on herbivore diversity, soil moisture had an indirect negative effect on herbivore abundance, via the negative effect of plant productivity on abundance, contradicting the more individuals hypothesis. Synthesis. Our results highlight that not only can drought result in significant reductions in plant productivity in this threatened ecosystem, but that these changes will also result in increases in herbivore abundance. In contrast, where soil moisture is higher, grasses will become more dominant resulting in decreased herbivore abundance. Ultimately, predicting how this system responds to changes in precipitation will depend on the ability to predict whether growing season soil moisture will be consistently drier or wetter in the future, a significant challenge. Going forward, investigating how variation in precipitation due to climate change affects the links between trophic levels, including how herbivores affect plant communities, remains critical for understanding ecosystem processes and stability.

Interspecific Aggression Of Two Wrens Along An Environmental Gradient In Western Ecuador

“…Although the specific mechanisms through which climate variability impacts birds’ behaviors and distributions are not well understood, climate variability has been shown to affect habitat quality (Barnagaud et al 2012, Jackson et al 2015), which can affect territoriality in birds (Robinson and Terborgh 1995, Ekman et al 2001, Carrete et al 2006, Jankowski et al 2010). Rainfall patterns, for example, can directly affect plant productivity and insect abundance, which in turn determine food availability for birds (Haddad et al 2001, Zhu et al 2014, Smith and Williams 2023). The quality of bird habitats in low-precipitation regions is influenced by a variety of factors, including food availability, substrate diversity, and morphological adaptations to specific habitats (Smith et al 2010, Akresh et al 2019, Tesfahun and Ejigu 2022).…”