The Ecological Significance of Tallgrass Prairie Arthropods

Abstract

Tallgrass prairie (TGP) arthropods are diverse and abundant, yet they remain poorly documented and there is still much to be learned regarding their ecological roles. Fire and grazing interact in complex ways in TGP, resulting in a shifting mosaic of resource quantity and quality for primary consumers. Accordingly, the impacts of arthropod herbivores and detritivores are expected to vary spatially and temporally. Herbivores generally do not control primary production. Rather, groups such as grasshoppers have subtle effects on plant communities, and their most significant impacts are often on forbs, which represent the bulk of plant diversity in TGP. Belowground herbivores and detritivores influence root dynamics and rhizosphere nutrient cycling, and above- and belowground groups interact through plant responses and detrital pathways. Large-bodied taxa, such as cicadas, can also redistribute significant quantities of materials during adult emergences. Predatory arthropods are the least studied in terms of ecological significance, but there is evidence that top-down processes are important in TGP.

Agroenergy Crops Influence the Diversity, Biomass, and Guild Structure of Terrestrial Arthropod Communities

“…Paralleling community-level responses, we found that herbivore biomass was enhanced in more diverse and forest-dominated landscapes. Herbivores are not known to directly control grass biomass in prairie systems but may control forb biomass and have important indirect effects [49], such as increasing litter quality and decomposition [50], contributing nutrients [51], and changing the throughfall chemistry [52] and energy demands [53] of damaged plants.…”

“…Previous studies investigating the role of predatory and parasitic arthropods in prairies have revealed a variety of controls on herbivorous arthropod populations through lethal and nonlethal effects that alter individual fitness and behavior [21,49]. By affecting herbivorous arthropod populations, predatory arthropods can also increase primary production through top-down trophic cascades [54][55][56].…”

“…Arthropod detritivores and scavengers directly and indirectly affect decomposition, carbon flux, biogeochemical cycling, and primary production [49,60,61], making them the dominant mediators of energy flow and nutrient cycling in many ecological systems. Dead arthropods themselves also contribute to detrital resources and represent significant pools of elements such as calcium [60] and a large number of detritivores feed heavily on fungi [61].…”

“…Neither did our broad sampling methods target focal groups (e.g., bees) and all important spatial niches (e.g., ground), which may leave some functionally important taxa (e.g., carabids) poorly sampled. Finally, we did not sample belowground arthropod communities, which are likely to have more influential roles than aboveground arthropods in processes such as decomposition [49] and herbivory [64] that may have a greater impact on plant populations [56,64].…”

Exploring Life Forms for Linking Orthopteran Assemblage and Grassland Plant Community

“…they can represent the bulk of the overall invertebrate biomass in the grass layer (gangwere et al 1997, Jamison et al 2002, whiles & Charlton 2006, readily responding to changes in habitat quantity (baldi & kisbenedek 1999) and traditional grazing activities (batáry et al 2007, sorino et al 2009, weiss et al 2013). furthermore, they represent the main food resource for many other taxa, including endangered species of birds, reptiles and mammals (e.g.…”