Trophic Levels Are Differentially Sensitive to Climate

Voigt, Winfried; Perner, Jörg; Davis, Andrew; Eggers, Till; Schumacher, Jens; Bährmann, Rudolf; Fabian, Bärbel; Heinrich, Wolfgang; Köhler, Günter; Lichter, Dorit; Marstaller, Rolf; Sander, F. W.

doi:10.1890/02-0266

Cited by 399 publications

(413 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Similarly, species without fully-developed wings are unlikely to recolonize sites that have undergone local extinctions, and we therefore hypothesize that such species will have depressed abundances, and therefore negative effect sizes, in cities. Finally, top consumers are often more sensitive to disturbance, climate fluctuations, and habitat fragmentation (Kruess and Tscharntke 1994, Holt 1996, Cagnolo et al 2002, Voigt et al 2003, and we hypothesize that predatory carabids may be more vulnerable to urbanization and exhibit more negative effect sizes than herbivores or omnivores.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

A meta‐analysis of the effects of urbanization on ground beetle communities

Martinson

Raupp

2013

Ecosphere

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Abstract. Urbanization is one of the most disruptive forms of land use, and its effects on ecological communities are likely to increase as the human population continues to shift from rural to urban living. Whether the myriad changes encompassed by urbanization (e.g., habitat fragmentation, the urban heat island effect, disturbance) affect biological communities in predictable ways remains unresolved. In this study, we employed meta-analysis to quantify the overall effects of urbanization on ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae), an ecologically diverse and important group that has been relatively well-studied in cities. We calculated effect sizes for carabid species richness, the total abundance of beetles at a site (assemblage abundance), and the abundances of individual species at urban compared to rural forested sites. We found that the number of carabid species in cities was only 77.6% that of corresponding rural sites, whereas assemblage abundance was relatively consistent between rural and urban sites. Such assemblage-level patterns resulted from the loss of certain species from urban sites and the increase in abundance of others. We hypothesized that differences among species would be largely attributable to their ecological traits (body size, habitat affinity, dispersal ability, trophic position). Through model selection based on information theoretic measures, we found support for the importance of the simple and interactive effects of beetle size, habitat affinity, and trophic position, with the most negative effect sizes for large, forest-specialist beetles that were predatory or omnivorous. Although species traits were key to understanding variation in species abundance effect sizes, several remaining sources of variation in carabid beetle responses to urbanization remain. Specifically, although many species exhibited consistent responses across the studies in which they were sampled and might therefore be considered urban avoiders or urban exploiters, many others were either relatively insensitive to the urbanization gradients or exhibited widely disparate responses across studies. Furthermore, we were unable to attribute variation in species richness and assemblage abundance effect sizes to available measures such as city size and study duration. Instead, additional mechanistic studies across the urbanization gradient will be necessary to understand such variation among studies and for species exhibiting variable responses.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

A meta‐analysis of the effects of urbanization on ground beetle communities

Martinson

Raupp

2013

Ecosphere

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“…Species higher in the food web-top predators-tend to be more sensitive to temperature change (e.g. Petchey et al 1999;Voigt et al 2003). Species moving ranges would mean non-random biodiversity loss or gain in local food webs, and its consequences on population and community dynamics can be explored using food web theory.…”

Section: Towards a Predictive Science Of Climate Change Impacts On Ecmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change, biotic interactions and ecosystem services

Montoya

Raffaelli

2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

266

187

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Climate change is real. The wrangling debates are over, and we now need to move onto a predictive ecology that will allow managers of landscapes and policy makers to adapt to the likely changes in biodiversity over the coming decades. There is ample evidence that ecological responses are already occurring at the individual species (population) level. The challenge is how to synthesize the growing list of such observations with a coherent body of theory that will enable us to predict where and when changes will occur, what the consequences might be for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and what we might do practically in order to maintain those systems in as good condition as possible. It is thus necessary to investigate the effects of climate change at the ecosystem level and to consider novel emergent ecosystems composed of new species assemblages arising from differential rates of range shifts of species. Here, we present current knowledge on the effects of climate change on biotic interactions and ecosystem services supply, and summarize the papers included in this volume. We discuss how resilient ecosystems are in the face of the multiple components that characterize climate change, and suggest which current ecological theories may be used as a starting point to predict ecosystem-level effects of climate change.Keywords: climate change; ecosystem services; biotic interactions; biodiversity; ecological networks; resilience CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS BEYOND INDIVIDUAL SPECIESClimate change is real. It is expected to be the major threat to biodiversity and one of the main factors affecting human health and well-being over the coming decades (Thomas et al. 2004;ME Assessment 2005; Schröter et al. 2005;Pimm 2009). Recent studies suggest CO 2 concentrations are over the safe boundary beyond which the risk of irreversible climate change is extremely high, such as the loss of major ice sheets, accelerated sea-level rise and abrupt changes in ecosystems, including agrosystems (Rockström et al. 2009).There is ample evidence that ecological responses are already occurring. First, data on many taxa in the Northern Hemisphere show a consistent trend of northward or westward expansion of species ranges and altitudinal shifts (Parmesan et al. 1999;Thomas et al. 2001;Walther et al. 2002;Walther 2010). Second, globally rising temperatures trigger spring advancement of phenology (Root et al. 2003;Edwards & Richardson 2004;Parmesan 2006). And third, reduction in body size owing to warming is generalized in aquatic systems (Daufresne et al. 2009;Moran et al. 2010). At the individual species (population) level, much progress has been made in the area of range shifts and effects on population dynamics. But scaling from populations through to communities, let alone ecosystems, will be challenging (Kareiva et al. 1993;Schmitz et al. 2003;Tylianakis et al. 2008;Berg et al. 2010;Fenton & Spencer 2010). The population responses of many species to climate change are unlikely to be simply additive and their combinational...

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“…Although much evidence has been accumulated on the long-term effects of ocean warming on eukaryotic populations (for example, animals and plants, Edwards and Richardson, 2004;Sala and Knowlton, 2006), no experimental information exists for the effects this may have on marine prokaryotic abundance and diversity (Sarmento et al, 2010). An explanation for this gap is the lack of historical data and the belief that lower trophic levels, such as the primary producers (phytoplankton) and decomposers (heterotrophic prokaryotes), are considered less sensitive to environmental change than their consumers or predators, because sensitivity to climate is considered to increase with trophic level (Voigt et al, 2003;Raffaelli, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term effects of ocean warming on the prokaryotic community: evidence from the vibrios

et al. 2011

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The long-term effects of ocean warming on prokaryotic communities are unknown because of lack of historical data. We overcame this gap by applying a retrospective molecular analysis to the bacterial community on formalin-fixed samples from the historical Continuous Plankton Recorder archive, which is one of the longest and most geographically extensive collections of marine biological samples in the world. We showed that during the last half century, ubiquitous marine bacteria of the Vibrio genus, including Vibrio cholerae, increased in dominance within the planktonassociated bacterial community of the North Sea, where an unprecedented increase in bathing infections related to these bacteria was recently reported. Among environmental variables, increased sea surface temperature explained 45% of the variance in Vibrio data, supporting the view that ocean warming is favouring the spread of vibrios and may be the cause of the globally increasing trend in their associated diseases.

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Trophic Levels Are Differentially Sensitive to Climate

Cited by 399 publications

References 32 publications

A meta‐analysis of the effects of urbanization on ground beetle communities

A meta‐analysis of the effects of urbanization on ground beetle communities

Climate change, biotic interactions and ecosystem services

Long-term effects of ocean warming on the prokaryotic community: evidence from the vibrios

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