Effects of experimental seaweed deposition on lizard and ant predation in an island food web

Science. 2011 Jan 28;331(6016):461-3. doi: 10.1126/science.1200282.

Abstract

The effect of environmental change on ecosystems is mediated by species interactions. Environmental change may remove or add species and shift life-history events, altering which species interact at a given time. However, environmental change may also reconfigure multispecies interactions when both species composition and phenology remain intact. In a Caribbean island system, a major manifestation of environmental change is seaweed deposition, which has been linked to eutrophication, overfishing, and hurricanes. Here, we show in a whole-island field experiment that without seaweed two predators--lizards and ants--had a substantially greater-than-additive effect on herbivory. When seaweed was added to mimic deposition by hurricanes, no interactive predator effect occurred. Thus environmental change can substantially restructure food-web interactions, complicating efforts to predict anthropogenic changes in ecosystem processes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Ants*
  • Arthropods*
  • Bahamas
  • Ecosystem
  • Feeding Behavior
  • Food Chain*
  • Geography
  • Lizards*
  • Plants*
  • Predatory Behavior*
  • Seasons
  • Seaweed*